@@bucksfan77 That is an unfortunate trait of the author and his works. Late last year, “Crisis” magazine published an online article by Darrick Taylor that goes into the topic. It’s worth checking out.
Just finished the book. Don't remember reading that first part, but yes Ivan believes the 2nd part. Worth the read, not for its answers but for its questions.
And that's a stupid quote from Dostoevsky. It presupposes that morality or moral obligations cannot exist without theism, a position overwhelmingly rejected by most professional ethicists.
As a former atheist, I didn’t, at first, realise the blatant hypocrisy of the atheist position on these matters. When I look back at some of Hitchens’ arguments, for example, they’re embarrassingly poor. And I feel some shame in parroting them. That said, I also understand that I had to go through that stage in order to later truly appreciate Christ as our real and living God. I can only strive to right those former wrongs. And so in some way I wish I never doubted to begin with.
@@Dram1984 Oof… same! That sense of feeling so much smarter and wiser than those who are and have been duped, only to later realise your own foolishness and arrogance… priceless feeling that is🤣
@@avishevin1976 Sure, one that is on topic and which I think is my favourite one, is where he does a complete revisionism of history and modern politics, and makes the claim that North Korea, the USSR etc., are always examples of theism, as opposed to atheism and the moral bankruptcy that follows it.
@@ChristineVress Except if you little liar actually read it, you'd know it's talking about people who lost the real faith and follow things of the world, which perfectly describes atheists. Nice try, though.
@@ChristineVress if you are bothered to comprehend, it is referring to people who have moved away from god. If you think that the letter is only for the christians in rome, why it is included in bible?
@@thejuiceking2219 You are deeply historically illiterate. Christianity was born of a POLYTHEIST world. You cannot grasp what God means and is without first grasping what gods meant and were. That requires a full Classical Education. Do you have one? Obviously not. Go get a real education.
I could have cared less over what they say, when their biggest influencer admits he would rather live in a society with a Christian culture after all his work to dismantle said Christian culture
Agreed. Dawkins said outright he wants Christianity... but he doesn't want Christ. In other words, he wants all of the benefits, but none of the responsibility that comes with it.
It's not so much that Christians have a responsibility that others don't, inasmuch as it is that Christians observe a responsibility that others won't - to worship God and give Him the honor that He is due.
@@avishevin1976Christians in baptism recieve the call to be saints. If you look what kind of lives the canonized saints went through, that's something to chew on isn't it? So if you want a christian society without being a christian yourself, you want to benefit from the love of neighbor the saints are trying to have, withoit giving them back what they're due. That's morally bad. It's also morally bad to reap the benefits of God's love to you, like existing, without loving Him back by recieving baptism, that's why you have the responsibility to get baptized and recieve that call too.
I'm a former pagan looking into Catholicism. Thanks for the videos you made and will make. You're a huge help with healing past religious trauma and false information.
I used to be pagan too! I’ve been Catholic for two years now this year and people have been so welcoming and kind to me even after telling them what I converted from. God bless you on your journey! :)
@@gatsbygoodwood2575Well, the Church does have a bad history. Secrecy? They've been very open about their beliefs from the start. The Papacy is fine, but Papal supremacy is neither biblical nor historical. And Catholics and Orthodox do not worship Mary. We simply venerate her because she gave birth to God in the flesh, or Jesus. However Catholicism just has so many theological issues and inconsistentsies that that's why I encourage people to look to Orthodoxy which has remained unchanged since it was established.
I do find Rovert Sapolsky's account of no free will interesting. During his conversation with Alex O'Connor he did mention that he only practices the philosophy of no free will for something like 3 minutes a month.
Usually the proponents of "no free will" do some pretty nefarious things behind the scene, (Stephen hawking). So it makes sense why they push it so much
@@tonyl3762Free Will may not exist, but that does not mean it's obvious that it doesn't exist. We may be able to know that in any kind of ultimate sense, uou are not 'responsible' for your actions, but even in that case, if you tried to kill someone, it still looks as though you wanted to killed them. No free will does not mean that feeling is immediately alleviated. The way I put it is by comparing free will to optical illusions. There are tons out there you can try, and even though you may be hyper aware of the fact that it is an illusion, you see them nonetheless. I can be knowledgeable in the idea that free will does not exist, though that doesn't render me unable to feel as though it was I who created an artpiece and still feel proud about it.
@@Eliza-rg4vw Or perhaps you don't really ultimately know that but merely have a desire to avoid responsibility for something or anything? (You certainly did NOT provide a demonstration or argument, lol.) Are you choosing to believe free will is an illusion like an optical illusion? You might as well disbelieve anything and everything (including your own "knowledge" regarding free will) if you are going to choose to believe reality is inherently deceptive and illusory. But that itself is self-defeating/self-refuting. Imagine a world of deception/illusion and contradiction all you want, but don't claim to have any "knowledge."
@@tonyl3762 Perhaps! I do think you'd need to provide evidence for that, as as far as I can tell, I am not saying what I am now in order to avoid responsibility. If free will does exist, I'd take as much responsibility then as I do now. I'm aware my actions have a lot more non-me things than I'd like to the point where I don't have free will, but that doesn't mean I don't have the illusion of responsibility either. If I say something to someone that hurts them, sure, I said that because of some external stimuli that had me say that, but it still looks and feels as if I said those things to hurt the person, and I would take responsibility for it. From what I can tell, free will is, in effect, like an optical illusion. You can try inserting words like "choose" there all you want to make it sound like free will needs to exist for this to happen and / or like it's not a serious option, but it's just more simply the conclusion I'm currently at given what I know about our decision-making processes. Does the analogy at least make sense? P2 is a slippery slope and quite frankly I don't really care for it at this time.
It's funny when the atheist who doesn't believe in freewill seems to get angry at the theist's actions or beliefs. It's like dude, but I couldn't believe anything else...
To be fair, I think an atheist who does not believe in free will wouldn't be mad at the person, but at the ideology. Something like I wouldn't hate the Germans in 1945, but I would definitely hate the Nazi ideology. As such, since you assume people have no blame for what ideologies they choose, you only try to change or remove toxic ideologies.
Yes and if we evolving by means of survival of the fittest, then surely evolving in such a way as to obtain eternal life is the ultimate survival instinct. Must be a natural process!
@@wordforever117 Yeah... several issues with that. The belief that you have it despite not having it can help soothe the mind but it doesn't help you survive beyond that. If you actually aim to get eternal life then recognizing you don't have it and striving to attain it will yield better results than simply believing you have it when you don't. In the context of actual evolution would say the inclination towards supernatural beliefs was fostered and the much more common aversion to death with that is what amounts to making up a supernatural eternal life. So it is more of a byproduct of what early minds did rather than directly evolution itself.
@@Boundless_Border It is an interesting theory but I don't think there is any evidence to back it up. Man has been religious since pre-historic times. All civilisations at all times have been religious. It transcends cultures and societies. The evidence point much more to man being instinctively religious because even self proclaimed atheists. They will consistently appeal to a higher power or external measure of goodness, or make statements of absolute truth for which there must be a transcendent arbiter. All instincts within man have two things in common.... the thing they strive for exists, and the same thing is required to sustain life. Food, water, oxygen, reproduction, even fight or flight...and prayer. When it comes down to it, when a crisis gets too much to bear, when there is no hope left.... *everyone* prays
@@LilySage-mf7ufyeah so if I believe something you find morally evil, you can’t blame me because I didn’t choose it. Your position is like a perverted sort of reverse-calvinism
@@LilySage-mf7uf OH, so your position is just "a given"? Ever heard of begging the question? Circular reasoning? Assuming what you should be trying to prove/demonstrate? People often choose not to be convinced, even in the face of air-tight logic/arguments. People often don't want to be convinced for various selfish reasons (the examples are endless). People are not machines that have to follow logic to its natural conclusions.
@@LilySage-mf7uf yes, you can make a judgement, but not a rational one. For it to be rational, there would need to be free will, as well as real values of good and bad. I appreciate the example of the tree you used, but it still "falls" short, lol. I'll see myself out, but before I do, can you show that the tree falling is bad? Sure it could be harmful, but why is harm bad? Is it because we just don't like it? What if someone does like, and prefers the tree to fall and hurt someone? Is it then good? I don't believe this framework can account for any moral choice in terms of judgement, as the only judgement or conflict would be conflicted feelings.
@@LilySage-mf7uf you haven’t answered my question. Why is harm or causing pain a bad thing in an atheistic world. Do you just not like it? Did we deem it bad because the majority doesn’t like it?
This is the main reason I'm not atheist. There is no foundation for objective moral obligations or free will. It is manifestly untrue upon observation of the world
@@avishevin1976 "All morality is subjective", as the vast majority of societies agree and have arrived to this morality independently. I think you know that you don't actually believe this.
@@newglof9558 The most significant moral issue in the US today is abortion. There are vehement disagreements, sometimes leading to violence, over the morality of the practice. Explain how morality is objective if there are two camps at polar opposite positions, with a whole spectrum in between. And that's just the most obvious example. People disagree on the morality of minor acts all the time. Morality is subjective.
Or if you see it my way, moral truths and conscienceless is inherit in every aspect of reality and more broadly the understanding of the whole and therefore the Whole is a directing mind, as truth, morals, perfection, beauty, make no sense unless they are inherit in the nature of the Whole, and moreover they are understood truths and therefore require a trinitarian conscienceless as the directing Whole.
I already know how the anti-free will types will respond to that first point. They'll say "It's true that we don't have free will and people can't choose a different path, but we're saying 'be better' to make them go down that determined pathway instead."
That’s interesting to me. At what point does the question of whether we “actually” have free will matter, if at all certain point not having a choice is indistinguishable from what having a choice looks like.
I don't believe in free will. I believe the chemicals in my brain determine my choices. The chemicals in my brain respond to external stimuli - so if you give me more data and logic then I will respond to it and "be better". No free will is needed.
So right! I woke in the middle of the night with that podcast running through my mind. I couldn't sleep while my mind, over and over again, ran through the very argument you make here.
No it can't, my lack of a belief in Gods has got nothing to do with the problem of evil😭. I just don't believe it because I haven't seen any decent evidence that suggests the God's any religion describe exist, That is the main argument for atheism (the lack of beliefs in God not the truth statement "there is no gods" btw)
@@mattstiglic My bad, but I still disagree. I'm sure these pop up atheists which are probably smarter then me can come up with better arguments then the problem of evil.
To steelman it, Orthodox Jews don't actively proselytize like Christians do. So while I'm sure they would be happy to bring the argument up in a debate with an orthodox Jew, Jews are not the primary group of people telling atheists "you need to believe this book."
cause if you put blame on Jews then you anti-sematic and a Nazi, which is mind boggling given that somewhere around 1-3 million Catholics also died in the holocaust
I have been an atheist for 20 years and always believed in free will. Not sure where the rejection of free will came from. Even if you believe that we are programed for certain desires you can still stear away from them. We may have an innate desire to want to eat fries, a burger, and lava cake for desert but you can still say " can't do it. I am on a diet"
"you can still say " can't do it. I am on a diet" Yes. But there is a reason why you are on a diet, right? And there is a reason why you choose to follow the diet rather than indulge in your desire for food, right? It's all cause and effect, there is no place for us to put this "free will" into anything. The only reason we feel that we have free will is that contemplating all the network of causes and effects is to complicated in most cases.
@WhiteScorpio2 so because you had a reason to make a choice means you did not make a choice? That makes no sense especially when you realize people make decisions contrary to their wellbeing or to their nature.
@@nickdesanto6119 "so because you had a reason to make a choice means you did not make a choice?" You made a choice, you just had no free will in making that choice. "That makes no sense" The idea of free will makes no sense. So how is this "free will" making decisions? Something happening either is determined by pre-existing causes or isn't, thus being random, but free will is somehow neither? That's logically impossible. Please elaborate how you imagine free will works. Let's say someone offers me a choice of apple or orange juice. Please describe the process of me choosing one or another without appealing to deterministic causes or randomness. "people make decisions contrary to their wellbeing" So? There are more causes to human behavior than care about their wellbeing. "to their nature" I have no idea what you mean by "nature" and how you determined that someone made a decision contrary to it. Are you just assuming that there is some magical "higher nature"? Why?
@WhiteScorpio2 No, I do not believe in a Devine or magical nature.for example, would you say it is natural for someone to try to preserve their life? Yet people choose to give their lives for strangers, ideals, and hopeless causes. People chose an option that is not rational or determined. We are not robots following the most logical path. Also you can not change your life if there was no free will. If you are that hedonistic person that takes drugs, sex and fine food and drink you can't change because you can not freely choose to listen to that friend that says you are killing yourself, choose to keep a clean life, choose to struggle against your habits. If you say the contrary in a world view with out free will you either have to assume that some how this person was always the pleasure seeking fool and the person predisposed to clean up his act or personality is itself random.
@WhiteScorpio2 No, I do not mean a transient or Devine "human nature." Would you not agree that humans naturally will take choices to prolong or improve their life. If so, why would some people be determined to give their life for a stranger or act irrationally. It make sense if they had a free choice. Also, say you are a hedonistic person who likes drugs, sex, and fine food and drink. How can one change their life without the free choice to listen to their friend telling them they are killing themself or freely choosing to refrain from their desires and tendencies? Are they both determined to be the hedonistic and the person wanting to improve their life at the same time, or did the person have free will and chose to be a different person?
Great timing! I'm currently working on a paper defending free will for my philosophy class. I'd like to use your burning building example for my paper to demonstrate the necessity of moral responsibility in society, if that's okay.
This reminds me of the moral dilemma that Joker sets up for Batman in The Dark Knight (spoilers; if you haven't seen it, you should stop reading this and watch it). When the Joker is being interrogated by Batman, he reveals that not only has Harvey Dent been taken captive, but also Harvey's fiancee (and Bruce Wayne's secret love interest) Rachel Dawes, whom the Joker suspects Batman is romantically involved with due to dramatic actions he took to rescue her earlier in the film. He gives Batman their separate locations and tells him that he doesn't have much time before they're both killed, so he has to choose. Batman decides to save Rachel, and gives Harvey's location to the police, hoping to outsmart the Joker and save both. The Joker has already outsmarted Batman however, because he swapped the addresses, and he knew the police wouldn't be able to respond in time anyway. If Rachel dies, Harvey and Batman are devastated, and if Harvey dies, Rachel is devastated along with Gotham's ray of hope. Batman shows up to save Rachel, and finds Harvey. Gotham PD shows up right as Rachel is killed. Should Batman feel guilty about not saving Rachel? Perhaps, but he TRIED. And that's the important part.
Because it's very difficult for atheists to demonstrate that free will actually exists within the parameters of materialism. Outside of Providence, there's very little indication that free will exists. It would seem that it is all chemicals in our brains reacting to stimuli. Thus being deterministic. It's much more consistent for an atheist to reject free will than presuming it and not give a coherent reason. I'm sure it can be done. But I haven't actually found a good argument that doesn't have some incoherency within itself.
I am dumb - This is because free will is a result of chemical reactions in your brain or the synapses that happen before an action or thought. So there is no way about it. There is no Free-Wi cir Aethiests. No god. Then the rational explanation is science. Unless you dont believe in Science.
Not really. He doesn't understand what makes people make choices. He just thinks we are made of magic or something and have complete control of everything all the time. Let me ask you this. If you are hungry do you get more easily upset? You do no question about it. Thats because our body and brain is lacking nutrients wich effects our mood and mental state. We are slaves to things our body needs not slaves to morality, morality is a made up concept the reality is people act and work differently because their mind and body works differently. You in reality have 0 control over yourself. You can regulate these changes in a more negative mindset like eating in the previous example but in the end you can't stop that from happening if you don't eat you are guaranteed to get more angry and upset if you are on an empty stomach meaning you don't have free will, you have the power to prevent the situation of getting hungry from happening and in extension getting angry but you don't have the power to go without food and and control how your emotions and how you act. This means that no we don't have complete control of our actions only the power to prevent that situation from occuring. We don't have complete free will. We have a lot of free will but not complete
@@skigui9078 Uhh, If there's freewill then there's some transcendence, no two ways about it. It's like an ocean that delivers water to a tap which delivers water to a household. The ocean symbolizes the much bigger complex transcendence of the consciousness of the soul, while the tap represents the body and the household represents the physical world. If the tap is damaged(body is damaged) then the water supply to the household(how you perform in the world and interact with the world) is affected despite the fact that the ocean is doing just fine( so a damaged body manifests negatively despite the soul being intact). Likewise, if the ocean becomes salty, there's nothing the tap by itself can do, so we have a negative outcome from the tap despite the tap being completely functional (a healthy , well fed, educated person can still make bad decisions and do evil). So you see, it's a mutual interaction, the soul needs the body to interact with the world and so if the body is damaged or needs something, it can inhibit the workings of the soul, our thoughts, our choices. However the body can be perfectly catered for but we still make bad or detrimental decisions. So it's not either body or soul, it's body and soul involved in the equation here.
Hello Trent, can you please make a video refuting the claim that "Rome never fell, it just became a church". I hear that argument often, and protestants/athiest often point towards that fact that *most* Catholic countries in Europe today, where once part of the Roman empire.
Why does that need to be refuted though? If you believe in the church, that could be God placing his church within an institution that it could easily spread within.
Determinism isn't an atheist argument. It's held by many people of different beliefs surrounding the subject of belief in gods. You can hold people responsible while still believing in determinism.
Hi Trent! Could you do a episode about the government banning contraception (all/just the bad for health/just the abortifacient) or banning civil divorce (all/whiches?)? Sometimes these themes are discuted and I don’t think there is a Church’s document about this. Thanks!
There are multiple sources and documents from the Catholic Church regarding divorce and contraception. As for divorce only being allowed in situations of danger, divorce can also be granted in cases of adultery.
advocating for discrimination and dictatorship is the religious way it seems. removing free will is what religiously immoral people seem to want to do.
Spolsky is also one of these hacks who self exempts his own thoughts. So we need to get over the idea of hating any person for anything they've done because they have no free will, but we have free will in order to have to "get over the idea" of hating others for their predetermined actions. This is not logically consistent. It seems as though Sapolsky doesn't believe himself.
Thanks Trent always for defending/teaching our faith to those that are having a hard time comprehending God! I needed to hear this for such a long time. I just can’t fathom the mindset of atheists 😮God Bless you and your family ❤️🌎✝️
Devils Advocate here: Could this same argument be used against Theism? Theism holds that predestination and free will are compatible does it not? Isn't this the same as arguing that determinism and free will are compatible?
In fairness, determinism is not a unique idea to atheism nor did it come up with the theory. Reformed theology and Islamic fatalism both hold forms of this and have for centuries
@newglof9558 well obviously but I'm just pointing out that arguing that atheism is self refuting because it doesn't hold to free will is very bizarre apologetic. To me the better response Trent could have raised is the fact that atheists are entirely unable to make any moral judgments at all since they don't have an objective standard, and they can't fall back to making this an internal critique because Dawkins for example clearly argues against God and debating Craig due to his own perception of immorality in God's actions. The irony is that he has no basis to criticize God's actions since he can't say that anyone is responsible for their actions AND that actions have a moral value associated with them. For Dawkins, the problem is that his own moral intuitions (which are largely Christian whether he admits or not) are in his worldview completely arbitrary, and thus it makes no sense to criticize God for His allegedly arbitrary actions.
@@jonathanw1106 The point of the video is one element of atheism posited by many prominent atheists and why this element is inconsistent. That's it. It's like a 12 minute video. It doesn't promise much to you.
Question: couldn't one undermine this argument by accepting Determinism (under an Atheistic/Naturalistic viewpoint), but point out that it's untenable for free will to exist under Theism (i.e, if God knows everything, doesn't that mean all events are predetermined/couldn't have occurred in such a way so as to surprise God)? Wherever you go, free will seems to be absent irrespective of the existence (or nonexistence) of God, or so the argument would go anyways. Just curious. Cool video otherwise.
I’ve got a thought: Does being predetermined remove the variable of a human’s free will in their choices being known? I’d say the variable of free will still is part of the outcome, rather it happens through time as said choices/events occur. :)
I appreciate the thought! :) With that being said, I'm unsure as to how experiencing free will ("it occurring through time," as you say) renders it real, when from God's perspective, we couldn't have chosen otherwise (given that God's knowledge is infinite, and consequently, nothing should surprise Him, lest that show gaps in His knowledge). Provided that an all-knowing deity exists (God), how can free will exist? It may feel like it does for us, but that's merely a qualia espoused by fallible and ignorant creatures like ourselves. (If I'm misunderstanding your thought, I apologize. I may lack the cognitive wherewithal needed to engage your point. I'm uneducated in matters pertaining to theology).
@@S.Awasstolen "With that being said, I'm unsure as to how experiencing free will ("it occurring through time," as you say) renders it real, when from God's perspective, we couldn't have chosen otherwise (given that God's knowledge is infinite, and consequently, nothing should surprise Him, lest that show gaps in His knowledge)." I understand the concern, but I feel like such a binary puts God as limited to time itself rather than being outside of time. I'd say we run the risk of, by our limited faculties, faulting God for our own inability to levy said critique. So, can you maybe help me out understand such a critique is reasonably possible for such truly infnite, timeless Being? :/
@@S.Awasstolen " It may feel like it does for us, but that's merely a qualia espoused by fallible and ignorant creatures like ourselves." I actually like this point a lot since I'd say this exact same concern would apply to being able to critique God as He is. And no, you are engaging more thoughtfully then probably 99% of folks I engage with. Thank you for this. :)
>> "So, can you maybe help me out understand such a critique is reasonably possible for such truly infinite, timeless Being? :/" No problem! Regardless of God's position to time (within or outside of it), assuming God is all-knowing, that'd entail His foreknowledge of events (past, present, and future). Wherever He's situated, He should know everything (including events that have yet to occur). He could be outside of time, and still be all-knowing, right? To be free is to be able to choose otherwise, but how can this be if God already knows what you'll choose (and moreover, you cannot surprise God, for that'd illustrate blanks in His knowledge). I'll grant you this: when considering the volume of conceptions of God (whether it be of an Judiastic type, Christian type, or Islamic type), it may be the case that one of these "conceptions" of God somehow allow for free will (like, for example, maybe under Judaism's theology, God's nature is less anthropomorphic, and more representative of "Goodness" as an abstraction. I'm just spitballing, but I'm sure you understand what I'm conveying: different theologies offer different natures of God, and maybe, one of these purported nature's solves this dilemma of free will). >> "I actually like this point a lot since I'd say this exact same concern would apply to being able to critique God as He is." Absolutely. Presuming (somehow) that human perception, for as rational and moral as it can be, is ALWAYS such (or even usually such) is an error made too frequently (and most astonishingly, by intelligent and well-reasoned people in most regards). >> "And no, you are engaging more thoughtfully then probably 99% of folks I engage with. Thank you for this. :)" You're too kind. I shudder thinking of what sort of company you keep if "99%" aren't as thoughtful as this meager post of mine. Nevertheless, thank you.
I've thought through this issue before. In an atheistic view, every particle was set in motion 14 billion years ago and follows a set of universal laws of physics. If our particles have been destined to do something from the beginning of time, we can't have free will.
I dont think i have a concise counter. But it just struck me, if an athiest makes this argument, they are also stating that "morality is a social game" in which they play along, and that moral judgement is related to the rules set of this game. There are two kinds of games that you can play, an outer game, and an inner game. Outer games have objective well defined rules that are easily cross referenced and so outward performance can be checked against. The rules only govern behavior. Inner games are set by a mixture of drives (which have rules for how to follow them and the corresponding feedback in your biology) and internal moral systems (which have intrinsic rewards and punishments). The inner game governs behavior, intention, thought and intentionality. And in a large way all of these are construed as inner behaviors to the individual. To me it seems like the atheist is arguing that they dont need god as long as they play the inner moral game. Even if the rewards are intrinsic, since the inner game relates to outer behavior, should they expose their inner game like by talking about an experience, they can be judged by those who also play the inner moral game. That is, regardless of the final source or end of moral ideas, an athiest just has to play the game enough to get what they want and that since it is a game with worldly consequences both for pleasure and social gain/loss, they can justify playing it even if there is no true moral justification. This obviously takes for granted the fact that man has moral drives, it lacks any desire to investigate purpose, and it ignores cases where men simply choose not to play any of those games or where they rebel against those games. Not being able to properly judge men who are openly and inwardly amoral is a big deficit. As a catholic this sort of athiestic idea is pretty unsatisfying. But it does not seem to me to be entirely so easy to dismiss. Maybe i am formulating it poorly. But to me this seems like the issue.
The argument I gave below is another way to respond. As to free will, not only do we need a standard to call anything “good” or “bad” we need rationality and free will. On naturalism and evolution we don’t seem to have an account of either free will or rationality. Since evolution’s mechanism is on survivability rather than obtaining true beliefs there seems to be no way that true beliefs would survive the survival of the fittest function! The football players would always obliterate the chess team leading to brawns but not brains. For more see Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism
first off, figuring out what's true and what's not true can be useful in regards to survival second off, survival of the fittest is sketchy in that regard, it's more a case of 'what works works', like butt fluff, scientists couldn't figure out the purpose of butt fluffy, so the general consensus as to why we have it is simply that there wasn't enough of a reason for us to get rid of it, not having butt fluff wasn't enough of an evolutionary downside to phase it out thirdly, just because those mechanisms weren't based on obtaining true beliefs but survival doesn't mean they can't be used for that, in the same way wood wasn't formed for the purpose of making fires, but it can be used for such a purpose
@@thejuiceking2219 But the problem is sometimes both can be true and you have to make utility based choice And even tho other thing could be less rational if it's more beneficial You will still have to accept it Statistically Religion is better And therefore since the position of God can't be falsified And We can take culture and Some morals from Religion Then we have to practice religion
@@thejuiceking2219Your third point That would be an intelligent Choice by the Organism And not Evolutionary gift by Nature I can also apply the same logic And then say similarly about religion and God
@@thejuiceking2219Survival of Fittest is not hard to understand There are cases where it's difficult to put things into places or understand them well But in most cases we can easily see what is happening And it's basically "Who adapts will survive,those who don't won't survive" I can say same things about non Religious and Atheist societies And make a Utility based claim
@@harsha6937 okay, just to be clear, when you say God can't be falsified, are you specifically talking about the christian God, or just any creator deity? because the christian God can be refuted, since the bible is the source of the christian God, so if you can refute the bible you can refute God for just any creator deity not defined by a religion, i'll be 100% honest, i don't think i could dispute that for any reason outside of 'i see no reason to believe that'
the more I learn the more I am baffled by how one can be an atheist. sin truly blinds the intellect. Thanks be to God for His mercy and grace! Viva Cristo Rey
Can you explain more from a Catholic perspective why you view “there is moral responsibility” as a given, since it is the crux of denying all of the pro-determinism arguments in the video? Incompatibilists like Sapolsky would just say that our perception of moral responsibility is evolved just like our “illusion” of free will is evolved
Another major problem with determinism is simply the absurdity of the fact that if your thoughts are simply the result of molecules in motion, then you are not "thinking" your thoughts in any meaningful way. They are things happening as the result of natural processes, not intentionality. If you do not intentionally think your thoughts, then "You" do not exist in any meaningful way. The very idea of personhood depends upon free will. There is no such thing as a person without will. There is no such thing as intellect or mind, without will. Thus the notion of determinism creates and absolutely absurd image of reality in which a person that does not exist, is thinking that another person which does not exist is morally blame-worthy for thoughts that person did not think, and actions that the non-existent person took, because the non-existent person had desires which are also simply the result of molecules in motion. And yet they have the gall to think of themselves as rational and the proponents of reason. Ironically, this just adds another layer of absurdity to their situation. A person who cannot think, and doesn't exist, considers themselves to be better at thinking in accord with reality, than a person who also does not exist, and can't think, who has different molecules moving in a different pattern. Also, a comment on the whole conquest of Canaan thing. One of the charges that is leveled against Christians who defend God's command to kill the children is that they believe "God commanded it therefore it is just." Which can be seen as a Voluntarist, arbitrary position whatever God commands becomes good. In the Euthyphro dilemma this would be the "it is good because the gods love it" option. In this view there essentially is nothing which is objectively good, good and evil are subjectively determined by God. However, there is another possibility here. Consider that God knows the good and does good, because it is good. We know imperfectly and can know the good, but we also acknowledge that God's knowledge of the good is infinitely better than ours. Thus it is possible that God's knowledge of the good and our knowledge of the good can conflict because he would know something to be good that we would think is bad. Given that reality, a wise person could say "I believe this is good because God commanded it" without meaning that goodness is arbitrarily determined by God's fiat. Rather in this case, the statement would simply be a statement of faith, that I trust God to know the good, better than I know the good, thus I will defer my judgement to his judgement. This is, pretty much, what the entire book of Job is about.
I have also heard it argued that the utter conquest of Canaan was likely war hyperbole not literal which was incredibly common in literature at the time. There are many different explanations of that event in the Bible and I'm honestly still thinking through it. Now I'll have to listen to Horns apologetic on it to compare
@@filler7149 What a brilliant strawman. How did you go from determinism to non existence ? Just because the universe is deterministic doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.
@@trompette4485if everything is determined then imagination isnt real because imagination is a thought process and you as a robot cant think I was making a cheeky jab at the inconsistence You guys must hear strawmen in your walls
The problem for atheists runs even deeper that what you lay out here. Dawkins and co are mad at Craig because they think he was *irrational.* That is, they think he reasoned *incorrectly* and *should* have reasoned differently. But just as their determinism requires that Craig could not have morally chosen differently, so it holds that he could not have reasoned differently. In all cases, given the premises of atheistic materialism, one's decisions, choices, and conclusions are entirely determined by irrational, blind forces without remainder, and universal abstract laws of logic and objective truth have no actual part in it. As the atheists' primal anger suggests, morality and rationality are closely intertwined. In fact, man is a moral animal with free will *precisely because* man is a rational animal, and atheistic material determinism implies the non-existence of real moral choice only as a secondary effect, as it first and foremost implies the non-existence of real rational decision-making. So it's not just that materialist atheists have no grounds for condemning Craig morally. They have no grounds for holding that he's being any less rational than they are. In fact, they have no grounds for holding that a young-earth creationist or someone who thinks the universe is resting on an infinite pile of turtles is any less rational than they are. To be consistent with their view, they must accept that all of their views (including materialist atheism itself) are utterly arbitrary with no rational basis whatsoever.
Plus, you're actually arguing that given the factual account--without any mystical dressing--that genocide happened and could only happen. So you may be throwing a tantrum about what nobody could prevent, but you're not really providing that much more *opposition* to it--especially Sapolsky who thinks it's absurd to hate the Israelites for massive bloodshed, because it's not like they could do other.
I’m an infant nanny and what I know to be true is that people’s minds and behaviors are developed and influenced by the treatment they received during early childhood. For example an infant who is left to cry alone (more than the “occasional few minutes while you’re in the shower) but on a chronic level, that child’s mind will be damaged by the neglect of her mother/father. We do have free will but what happens in early childhood affects how we use that free will and a person’s behavior and understanding of every aspect of life. Do we kill baby Hitler or do we teach baby Hitler’s mother to be a better parent?
That book quote from Sapolsky a showed me who are the ones that are ideologically captured. When someone wrongs you so bad your body naturally reacts in anger to seek retribution but I guess the feelings of the victim doesn't matter, they are unnatural but what ever the criminals does was not his choice.
The bomb-in-the-head scenario reminded me of the Marvel comic Secret Wars, where the heroes make the decision to fight Dr Doom, after he has stolen the Beyonder's powers. They are instantly annihilated after the choice has been made, but they still made the choice.
There's just one problem with this argument. Sure some atheists might not believe in free will, but there are many of us who do. Our upbringing and circumstances might influences our choices but we still have free will. I don't believe in God. I believe in free will. I don't see the incompatibility. I clearly chose to write this comment right? I didn't have to. I am an agent with free will.
A simpler and yet similar argument: if you can figure out it's unjust, then God can as well. The appeal to "ought", a sense of justice that isn't evidenced by the record of history and isn't naturally occuring, is either a complete delusion akin to a mental disease or it corresponds to something transcendant that actually exists.
No one said all atheists deny free will. What we're saying is they cannot justify or prove that it exists. In other words, they make irrational claims that free will exists. If you know of a rational way for atheists to claim and prove free will, I'd be interested to hear about it.
@@tonyl3762 We evolved to be able to make choices. See Daniel Dennett. Compatibilism. What's funny to me, sadly, is that Christians say they believe in free will....but what does that mean? You picked your Catholic or Muslim parents? Being born to Catholic or Muslim parents, especially if they're reasonably nice, provide good resources, etc., means you have little chance to not be very influence to be Catholic or Muslim. Children are told "honor your parents" and in Islam, this is a command, to take care of your parents until they are gone. So, take a child, "train him up" and "he'll not depart from it," sort of disproved libertarian free will. Compatibilism is a good middle ground. I tend to lean towards Dennett away from Robert S.
@@michaelsbeverly Sorry, but the hand-waving magic of the term "evolution" is not an evidential explanation or demonstration that quarks, bosons, atoms, molecules, chemicals, etc. can become conscious and make choices. Please provide some actual evidence, logic, reasons. At least evolutionary biologists provide examples of intermediary organisms to demonstrate the evolution of physiological structures. Unfortunately, you won't find consciousness, thoughts, and choices preserved in fossils. I believe Dennett is one who believes that we are our brain and that our brain controls "us" rather than there being a person who makes choices. This view has been persuasively countered from what I've seen. You're showing a lot of ignorance and presumption.... Not all Christians believe in free will (e.g. Calvinists). You also totally ignore the widespread phenomenon of people abandoning the views of their parents, whether religious or non-religious, regardless of resources, etc. (shouldn't most atheists already be aware of this?). There are even liberal-conservative spectrums within religions. So your measurement of "little chance to not be very influence to be X" is wildly speculative and likely largely inaccurate, though I'm guessing there are some studies out there that do a fair enough job measuring shifting views. _"he'll not depart from it"_ lol, there are apparently no bounds to misinterpretation of the Bible.... Are you not aware that that verse is found in the book of PROVERBS? Do you know what a proverb is? Do you know what "context" is? That book/verse is not even trying to make a philosophical or sociological statement of fact.
8:17 on the basis that it can make a difference. There is no reason for blaming animals without a sense of morality because the blame can't have any effect on the future behaviour of the animals. There is a reason for blaming humans with a sense of morality because their sense of morality can make them behave differently in the future.
Seems trent's argument hinges on all atheists are determinists, or if you do not believe in determinism you must believe in a god. Not the case. The reason human action is not determined is because our minds are capable of weighing different decisions. A human can understand, at least to the extent of them understanding the situation, the consequences of their choices. And that power of reason is not nessisarily only possible if a god exists.
question: if everything we say and do is all part of God's plan, which has all been planned out ahead of time, then can christians really say we have free will either? is it really free will if all we're doing is following the plan, whether we know it or not?
We don't have free will like driving on a four-wheeler going where ever you want but instead the Bible teachings is more like a train running on tracks and you can choice the track you travel but God ultimately is the one laying down the tracks. No matter which track you chose , rebel against God or repent and submit to God , God will carry out His plan.
@@smidlee7747 except if God is all-knowing then he already knows which of those decisions i'll make, which 'tracks' i'll choose, and so we end end up back at square one; either God's plan isn't how it's laid out to be, or free will for christians in ultimately just an illusion, where everything's already planned out for you and you only think you have a choice in the matter, you have all these difference choices, all these 'tracks', but also i know which tracks you'll choose
@@thejuiceking2219 You are assuming God is bound by time like you. The scripture clearly teach the opposite "Before Abraham was I Am" So it's not like God is looking in the future and see which track you chose , He is already there as well when you make your choice. Since God knows everything like you said He includes man in the judgment to judge himself. This is repeated many times in scripture. This is what we mean by free will , God steps back and allows man to judge. The men of Sodom and Gomorrah condemned themselves when they decided they would attack Lot who if it wasn't for him they would still be slaves. God could have judge them immediately for their sins yet He allowed them to judge themselves. This is why how you treat your fellowman is linked with your relationship with God.
that doesn't make sense, of course they'd value their definition of morality over the morality of someone they don't believe to exist, by that same logic i could call you arrogant for believing your morals to be superior to those of, say, Allah
You would rather take morality from an ancient book written by people likely affected by socio-economic factors of the time long considered outdated over morality based on empathy, logical understanding and democratic opinion? Also, the Bible doesn't explicitly condemn pedophilia as far as I am aware. If I am wrong, feel free to correct me on that but if I'm right, know you worship a religion that doesn't condemn pedophiles
@thejuiceking2219 Since I root objective morality in the historical Christ and His teachings rather than solely my own reason your analogy does not work. Especially when compared to the a-historical claims made by Islam.
@@hydraph4843 pedophilia is explicitly contrary to Christian Doctrine on marriage since such unions are not oriented to procreation or the mutual partnership toward Holiness. Rather they are rooted in mere subjectively rooted justifications much more appropriate to individualist materialist atheism as paraded on campuses across the country. Your misunderstanding of christian teaching is not surprising given the apparent materialist bias you admit accreditting to history.
This video proves that Alex'O' Connor is incredibily intellectual dishonest. There's no way he just doesn't know about these famous criticisms, especiay since he EXPLICITLY affirms predeterminism. He's not interested in having an honest debate. Only in virtue signaling, and feeling the need to tell others how great and morally righteous he is... even though morality is impossible if athiesm is true. It's ridiculous.
Willing to bet he's more than aware of these criticisms and just doesn't find them convincing. Plenty of views of morality don't have any trouble with these objections. More than that, though, there's very good reason to believe free will as a concept isn't just untrue but also logically impossible (a belief which Alex O'Connor personally seems to subscribe to) and none of these arguments really address that.
@@EpixAura "Plenty of views of morality don't have any trouble with these objections." Conveniently, you and none of the other atheist apologists here are capable of mentioning any of these supposedly numerous "views of morality". Opinion discarded.
@@chormerlyfuchs The obvious objection is to argue against the idea that moral accountability exists (The second premise in his argument) Trent's arguments for moral responsibility are: 1: It's obvious. Saying things are obvious is not an actual argument. 2: If it didn't, people would be justified in doing terrible things for the greater good. This really only applies to more hardline utilitarian views and is a pretty clear false dichotomy. The reason I didn't list in-detail viewpoints on morality is because pretty much everything EXCEPT this specific moral system doesn't have a problem this with. Disagreeing with Trent's definition of moral accountability also works, as he defines it as the ability to have done differently, which implies the existence of free will. Using a definition of "the ability to do differently in the future" gives us a definition that works just as well without having to imply that. This is the main objection I see being pointed out in the comments here.
@@EpixAura So what if he "doesn't find them convincing"? That's the personal incredulity fallacy, Matt Dillamonkey level argumentation. My point is that if you don't think free will exists, you can't hold any one morally culpable for their actions, because they were just predermined to do an evil action. So WLC can't be held morally "responsible" for defending "slaughter", because he was just predermined to do that, which makes Alex super dishonest. Also there is an pressupositional argument to be made for the neccesity of free will, but even if that wasn't the case i was just pointing out that Alex is dishonest for on one hand telling people that he doesn't think there's any logical reason to blame someone for their actions, but on the other, when it's convinient for him to get a bunch of views for condemning WLC for defending "slaughter", suddenly we don't notice a contradiction in his argumentation, and everything is fine.
@@Anderson-vj8sh If Alex publicly said something to that effect and acted as though that settled the matter, it certainly would be an argument from incredulity, but that's not what's happened. Realistically he likely has reasons for not finding them convincing, and while I don't have access to his thoughts on the matter on account of not being Alex, if the argument is specifically "Moral responsibility as Trent defines it is incompatible with determinism, therefore its logically inconsistent for Alex (or anyone who doesn’t believe in free will) to hold someone morally responsible” then there’s a few objections that can be raised. First is to object to Trent’s definition of moral responsibility. Rather than “someone is morally responsible if they can be blamed or praised for an action” something like “someone is morally responsible if they could feasibly have acted differently if they (A) have a sufficient understanding of morality and (B) could have been incentivized to do otherwise, with the amount of moral responsibility they have scaling inversely with the amount of incentive needed” still provides a working definition that lines up with all of Trent’s examples without excluding determinism. There are likely much better definitions but a lot of comes down to what you believe the purpose of moral accountability/responsibility to be and that’s an absolutely insane rabbit hole to go down. Second is to deny the existence of moral accountability entirely. Plenty of views on morality don’t necessarily need moral agents or moral accountability for their framework to be consistent. While my knowledge of this of this particular viewpoint isn’t even really surface level, emotivism (which Alex generally subscribes to) is one of these as far as I can tell. It may look as though he’s holding WLC morally responsible for his views, but from his perspective he’s just expressing the emotional opinion of “I dislike slaughter. Boo, slaughter.” which is a statement that doesn’t care about determinism or free will at all. On a more pedantic note, it can also be argued that Alex WASN’T condemning WLC or his opinions but simply playing Devil’s advocate which is generally what he does on the podcast. I don’t particularly care to push this point since I’m more interested in the philosophical part of the discussion and I’m not entirely convinced of this point myself and can’t fault anyone for being unconvinced by it, but I’ve seen enough people in the comments point it out that I feel a little bit obligated to say it.
The main problem with Trent's arguments are that they randomly link atheism with determinism. They also fail to address whether or not determinism is true or is it an illusion. Whilst I'm an Atheist I can't be sure which is true, determinism or free will. I accept they appear incompatible however am unsure which is correct (though they both appear to be). Is it possible that there is some unknown mechanism which allows both to exist; I don't know. The problem of free will exists for both a deterministic view point and a belief in an omniscient God. However I accept Trent's argument that if determinism is true, there is no moral responsibility. I just think that it isn't related to either atheism or the belief in a God.
Congratulations on missing the argument of, no free-will, Trent. Response to your video - • For all intents and purposes the will of us is not free. • It is idle to speak of free will in a man who is the slave of the objects around him. He is ever in bondage, he can exercise no choice; for though we may think of such a one as choosing to follow the path along which attractions draw him, there is, in truth, no choice nor thought of choice. So long as attraction and repulsion determine the path, all talk of freedom is empty and foolish. • To understand what freedom of will means, we must clear away a preliminary difficulty which faces us in the word: choice. • When we appear to be free to choose, does that so-called freedom of choice mean freedom of will.? Or is it not true to say that freedom of choice means that no external force compels us to elect one or another of alternatives.? • The important question that lies behind this is: what makes us choose.? Whether we are free to act when we have chosen is a very different thing from whether we are free to choose, or whether the choice is determined by something that lies behind. • No one denies the power of a person, physically unconstrained, to leave a room or to stay in it, to drop a weight or to uphold it. • The question is: why do I choose.? When we analyse the choice, we see that it is determined by motive. You can uphold or drop the weight, but if there is a valuable or fragile article underneath, you will not drop it. That which determines your choice not to drop it is the presence of that valuable or fragile object. Your choice is determined by motives, and the strongest motive directs it. • The question is not: am I free to act, but: am I free to will.? • In truth, this fact that the will is determined by the strongest motive is the basis of all organized society, of all law, of all penalty, of all responsibility, of all education. • In law, a man is regarded as irresponsible when no motive sways him, when no ordinary reasons affect him. • Apart from the previously-mentioned bondage to attraction and repulsion, we are bound within the channels made by our past thinkings, by our habits, most of all by our habits of thought, by the strengths and the weaknesses that were born with us, by our education and our surroundings, by the imperious compulsions of our stage in evolution, our physical heredity, and our national and racial traditions. • We know what motivated the atrocious acts of the church and we know what motivates every Chrstn to uphold the atrocious acts committed by the church. • Can a person who is bound by a virtue, criticize those, who are bound by a vice.? Yes. • Can a person who is bound by a virtue, in one area, be bound by a vice in another area.? Yes.
Your title is misleading. Atheists that defend free will can blame Christians. So, at best, you have 'some atheists can't blame Christians.' Slightly different, and totally uninteresting. Edit: Perhaps you don't title your videos, and if you don't, you should have a word with the person that does, because they're making you look like a disingenuous interlocutor who is willing to uncharitably generalise to suit your narrative. A sign of a really poor thinker failing to appreciate nuance and dialectics. Food for thought, Trent.
"A sign of a really poor thinker failing to appreciate nuance and dialectic" This is how I described my mom when she wouldn't listen to my argument on why I shouldn't have to eat vegetables
@@newglof9558 But his title is misleading. Similar to saying theists believe Mohammad is a prophetof God. No, some theists believe Mohammad is a prophet of God. If you were then going to criticise Mohammad thinking you're criticising theism, you're making a grave error. And it's not even similar, it's exactly the same.
4:43 appealing to God to get out of the free will paradox doesn’t work. I could cite the consensus of professional philosophers, but either way appealing to god doesn’t create a philosophical justification for free will.
If morality is subjective, and I think that genocide is good, then are you to prove me wrong? If you were to call me reprehensible, could you prove that objectively? Subjective morality is extremely dangerous.
@@nativeatheist6422 So does deflecting the statement suggest that genocide, to you, is a subjective concept? Again, if morality were subjective, what is so bad about Genocide? If you or I were killed, what would be so bad about that?
Moral responsibility is an observable natural phenomenon, determinism is a metaphysical hypothesis. From "people are inclined to attribute value to actions", which is an observable phenomenon Does not follow "therefore people are free from causal chains", which is a metaphysical hypothesis It is a mistake to connect analytic and synthetic statements like this since former represent relations of ideas and are necessary true, while the latter represent matters of fact and one can not be derived from another
Mentioning the moral problem of the ancient Israelites' slaughter of the Canaanites... only to then switch the entire discussion to a focus on the inherent contradictions of those who reject Free Will is chicanery. If you're going to defend Christianity, deal with the problem that has been raised - by yourself, in this instance - first and foremost.
he did by calling out the major contradiction of atheists who criticize christians morals by showing that an atheist cant even be in reality actually "moral" in the sense of good and evil
The entire implication in P1 is unsubstantiated. People aren't determinists because they're atheists. They're determinists because they believe certain physical theories to be true. If those theories are really true, then the universe is deterministic regardless of God's existence.
I feel like there still is a possibility that moral responsibility is something people have come up with (i.e. it doesn' need to come from God). A "tool" humans have invented to increase well-being and decrease harm. As I understand, this is the direction the definition of morality takes for most people (atheist or not; myself included) who don't believe it comes from God. There is some nuance, but it's not important for this comment. A common response to the most common moral argument is that moral values don't need to be objective because morality could also be a concept humans have come up with to achieve a certain goal. Sometimes, an action would be (almost) universally agreed to be immoral, but that doesn't necessairily mean it's objective. I really commend you for not going for the emotionally manipulative route (I've seen some apologists presenting the argument as "imagine the most morally repulsive thing" to confirm that premise). However, I think you were a little hasty to justify that premise, i.e. taking a look at how atheists talk about those parts of the Bible. I think it is still consistent for a determinist to criticise that... It can still be subjectively placed moral responsibility (with a certain goal) and they may or may not be detetmined to place it. And that's another thing I I feel like you should've discussed more. I don't think it would be inconsistent to place moral responsibility for a determinist. A determinist is still able to think about a single action of declaring someone is morally responsible for an action. He is able by looking at posibilities what could happen if he does it in contrast to what would happen if he does not. He is just (in his view) determined to do so. Also, just to clarify, I am agnostic both when it comes to the free will question and the God question.
I actually don't have a particular issue with the moral defense of the actions, I think it's a bit of a slippery slope (Alex presses WLC on this in their conversation and WLC struggles to answer a question like "does this mean god could, in theory, command a school shooting?"), but the trickier question that he didn't want to elaborate on in that particular conversation is, how can you possibly know what a divine command is? You can't say for sure that Joshua's actions were the result of a divine command, but a woman who kills her children because god told her to is just mentally unwell. You just don't know that.
15:04 precisely and those reasons are not free. You are subject to your reasons. You are subject to your wants. Free will is an illusion but moral responsibility isn't.
Is morality objective then ? I see litteraly no reason to believe in morality if Im not free. Either we are free or we are not, make up your mind What you are describing sounds like compatibilism which is not free will, it's borderline cognitive dissonance to say you are free but subject to your wants. If you cannot escape your wants you are not free. Neither are you then really moraly resposible. You just made hard determinists look like logical heroes
What I love is that atheists say that they believe in science. The problem is that science is Roman Catholic. Why else would "scientific terms" actually be in Latin. Also, scientific research are done at universities. Universities were started by the Universal Church. AKA The Roman Catholic Church.
Greeks and Persians and Chinese were way ahead in science than the roman empire, and they couldn't care less about "church language". and who told you science is in latin? Because we use x and y in math it makes it latin? Science is done in every language, when it comes to publishing, we use English just because it's worldly convenient not because we need "church language" Even the oldest scriptures of bible aren't in latin, the first ones were written in Greek, now what you got to say about your precious church language?
@amirparsi4165 You can pretend that the names of organisms and animals are not actually in Latin, but it is. All of them. The scientific name for a pig is Sus scrofa domesticus. That's Latin. Scientific name for cow is Bos Taurus. Again, that is Latin. Need I go on? The fact of the matter is that in the Western world, all of Europe was held together by the Roman Catholic Church. This was until the Reformation and Nationalism came to be. The Protestants made an enemy of reason and are responsible for pretty much every war that happened during and after the 1500's.
Animals must obey the pure instinct that causes self-preservation, even if it also preserves their offspring by seeming to be “selfless,” and to be to helping the offspring. They can’t and won’t do otherwise. That instinct may be deeply woven into their genetic makeup over millions of years, or that instinct may come into play only in governing their unique individual choices. But it’s still only an instinct. Humans, however, can fully override the self-preservation instinct, essentially subsuming the instincts that would help, in general, them and their descendants, and instead use their mental reasoning to take an action that would certainly kill or bring harm to themselves, but would save the life of another person. And they do it while knowing the risks, in full or in part. The very noticeable example of such a situation is when a person protects another who would likely harm them, and from whom they can only expect trouble. This is why we arrest murderers, without killing them, and at risk to ourselves, until the danger from them can be neutralized or contained by imprisonment. Animals don’t protect those that prey on them. There’s no morality to animals, so there’s no moral reason for them to do that.
Other animals genuinely are selfless all the time for their offspring or even for others. Bats have been known to feed other bats, which is selfless because they may need that energy themselves. Mother animals always risk themselves for their offspring, such as by sticking around their young in a vulnerable position. Some animals starve themselves to death to stay around their young. Humans are just very complex. Also, people arrest murderers because they are a risk to society, which can also include yourself, so obviously you would be against letting murderers free. "Animals don’t protect those that prey on them." That's because animals don't arrest each other. They get away, or defend. If you have a knife, and a crazy guy was coming at you, would you try to stab them in self defence, or run, or would you arrest them? No you wouldn't arrest them, because you are not in a position to do so. People have societies. In these societies, we are able to have dedicated roles for things like arresting people. Other animals don't have that because they don't need to. They don't need the same types as societies like us to survive with. Also, morality really refers to what we consider right or wrong. We know it because we communicate with each other, and have recorded laws. Animals cannot communicate in the same way we can, or record stuff. So, we don't know if they consider certain things wrong or not. I mean, it seems likely my dog would know what was wrong because he would crouch low even before we started shouting at him, because he was clever and knew it was something that we didn't like. And, he stopped doing some of those behaviours (still continued some naughty behaviours because he couldn't help himself the poor boy, but I am confident he knew it was wrong, at least in a way he understood)
@@hydraph4843 Your dog didn’t have the slightest clue about what was “wrong.” It only became accustomed and learned what things would make you react in a way that it didn’t like. It’s only learned. That doesn’t mean that mammals can’t have affection for mammals of other species. They do. But they don’t know why they do it, and they can’t turn it on and off with their willpower. Because they don’t have willpower.
@@timopper5488 "Your dog didn’t have the slightest clue about what was “wrong.” It only became accustomed and learned what things would make you react in a way that it didn’t like. ". Thanks for agreeing with me that my dog learned certain things made us unhappy with his behaviour. That's what humans do really isn't it? We look at how other people behave, and can relate to our own experiences of hurt to figure out what is right or wrong. "It’s only learned. ". So do people. I was terrible as a kid because I wouldn't share with people. Then I learnt that's naughty because of how other people react. "and they can’t turn it on and off with their willpower. Because they don’t have willpower.". Well no because like I say with certain behaviours my dog was able to stop it completely. It was just on things where the instinct was too strong. People ourselves struggle with many things
@@hydraph4843 You still don’t understand what I’m saying. Only humans can do something that they know for a fact will only harm them but help someone else. Other mammals can only do what will likely benefit them based on past experience. People can, and often do things that won’t benefit themselves at all, due to their convictions. Other animals do not have convictions.
@@timopper5488 " Only humans can do something that they know for a fact will only harm them but help someone else. ". Nope. There are instances of altruism in many animals where they take a risk for the benefit of others, and not even necessarily their kids. For example, vampire bats feeding others blood. They are getting rid of their own food, the stuff that all animals instinctively know to consume to keep them alive, just to help out these strangers. "Other mammals can only do what will likely benefit them based on past experience.". That is not true at all. See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism_(biology) I guess though as a particular example, what about first time mothers who sacrifice their own vulnerability for their offspring? Also this applies to other animals besides mammals. Birds also work very hard for their young, and even reptiles do so. Crocodiles will carry their young, and some snakes also protect their young (such as pythons incubating their eggs). This is their first experiences doing any of these things. Also, does this not apply to people? Think about it. Is there any good things you knowingly did before actually learning how others respond? Or, what others tell you? I came across this interesting paper which suggests that selflessness is an attractive behaviour. So, it's a risk sure. But, the benefits through how others perceive you can be greater than that risk: link.springer.com/article/10.1186/1471-2148-13-182 I also came across this video of a monkey rescuing another monkey (potentially putting itself at risk) for no immediate apparent reason): ua-cam.com/video/l6-mx13r5dg/v-deo.html
Trent, many theists are compatibilists, in my understanding, including most Catholics under the most common Thomistic interpretation that I've heard. This is very unintuitive to me, for many of the reasons you laid out here. Could you help me to understand? Is there a non-deterministic theism that is valid? How does it not devolve into open theism? Even Molinism seems somewhat reductionist to me.
There's just no way to make it sound appealing. The deaths were terrible and anyone with a heart would wish it had not happened. You just have to accept God for his love and his wrath.
There's a paradox at the heart of determinism. Why would Sapolsky write a book trying to change people's minds about determinism if the world is deterministic and he won't be able to change people minds? Unless it was predetermined that Sapolsky would write that book, and some people would change their minds due to reading it. Functionally, such a deterministic world would be indistiguishable from a world with free will. It's just predetermined that we would act as if we had free will, and that we are morally responsible for our actions. And it's the biggest *shrug* you could *shrug*. Either way you will have free will, or act as if you have free will.
"... if the world is deterministic and he won't be able to change people minds" Of course they can change their minds. People changing their minds when they encounter new evidence is still determinism. It's cause and effect. Far from being something that can't work under determinism, changing your mind in response to reading something is precisely determinism in action. It's a general, common failure to see anything mental, as being caused by anything external. That's simply not how reality works. There's a good BBC article from maybe 10 years ago with real world cases that significantly challenge popular notion of free will. I can't link it, but search for "BBC What can a brain scan tell us about free will?" and you should get there. Here's an excerpt. And ask yourself where the moral responsibility lies. ----- All that raises a question for the philosopher - what are the implications of advances in knowledge about human decision-making for our conception of free will? Will scientific progress undermine our sense that we have free will? Will it eventually lead us to conclude that free will is an illusion? Take the following notorious real-life case from a decade ago. A once happily married middle-aged man begins to develop a fascination for child pornography and prostitution. Until this moment he has exhibited no unusual sexual appetites. Matters deteriorate, his wife becomes alarmed, and when he makes an advance on his step-daughter, his wife informs the police. Her husband is compelled to go and have therapy - but that doesn't deter him. Indeed, he harasses women at the centre at which he is being treated. A prison term seems inevitable. But just before he is due back in front of the courts, he begins to complain of headaches. He is rushed to hospital, where a scan reveals a massive tumour. Once this tumour is removed, his behaviour returns to normal. The story has a further twist. After several months, his aberrant behaviour returns. An investigation reveals that the tumour has not been entirely eradicated. A further operation sees the man back to his old self once again. In this case most people will probably feel that the man with the deviant sexual behaviour wasn't really free. It was, as it were, the tumour that was responsible. But we are all physical beings in a (largely) deterministic universe. Why is one physical cause - a tumour - different from any other? Might, in future, neuroscientists be brought into court to explain away all manner of transgressions, for example: "This man can't be held responsible for his shoplifting - it was due to his unusually high levels of dopamine." There is evidence that some people treated with dopamine for Parkinson's have problems with impulse control, sex and gambling, for example.
When atheists vote for universal health care and evangelicals don't, i'm blaming the evangelicals. And philosophical gassing about free will and absolute standards doesn't make those lives better
As a Christian, I true freedom if the will makes no philosophical sense to me. I must also point out that there is no contradiction between there being no true free will and holding people responsible for their actions. The fact that the ardonists was somehow determined to set fhe fire does not mean that we should not respond to him as if he is a dangerous arsonist. The idea that moral responsibility requires true free will is a misapplication of the idea of duress being exculpatory. I would say that someone acting under duress (ie. Not according to their 'will') is exculpatory because their actions do not reveal something of their character.
5:04 the difference between blaming a lightning and a human being is that blaming a lightning won't have any difference on future lightning strikes while blaming a human, in many instances, will have influence on his future actions.
This explains subjective morality where those in power dictate the actions of others. I think he is referring to objective morality that would judge the actions of one with power.
@@smidlee7747 in this context it doesn't matter whether whether it's subjective or objective. He claims that there is no reason for blaming others if one doesn't believe in free will. He's wrong, there is a reason and it is indifferent whether the reason is objective or subjective.
No, he already addressed this with the North Korea example. If your goal of ascribing guilt or blameworthiness is simply to prevent crime from occurring, then it follows you should also punish 3 generations of that person. Deterrence of crime is not the sole reason we find blameworthiness.
@@johnmadison4040 the goal of ascribing guilt isn't to prevent crime. Its goal is to morally influence the other person so that he'd want to do things we believe to be moral. It has nothing to do with punishment. We can blame somebody without implying they deserve any punishment.
"If God exists, and we're made in God's image, that would explain how we have the ability to make choices, that rise above what nature would ordinarily determine in purely physical outcomes." 8:31 If you want to believe in an omni-benevolent god with free will, then I think you'd have to be a compatiblist. An omni-benevolent god will absolutely never do wrong, surely. But for a god to have Libertarian free will, there must be an objective possibility that they will do wrong. These two ideas are contradictory. If you are an incompatiblist, then since we could know an omni-benevolent god will never do wrong, they would have no free will, and would not be deserving of praise for their actions.
P1 is the contrapositive of "If moral responsibility exists, therefore God exists" which is clearly not axiomatic. For example, Atheistic moral realists and compatibilists do exist. Not to mention arguments that Divine Command ethics is not moral (since they are arbitrary) or that morality is evolved and therefore subjective but not arbitrary. Also, yet again a philosophical proof is not evidence, especially when the premises of the argument are debatable.
Lol always be on the Attack even when you’ve just humiliated your religion in front of the whole world. Would someone be so kind as to edit a short video of horn admitting “not more than 3” when referring to the eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ resurrection
As someone who was raised Catholic and has read the Bible cover to cover (although it was many years ago), I will say that the statement: P1. If God does not exist, we do not have moral responsibility P2. We do have moral responsibility C. Therefore, God does exist. Isn’t logically sound, because it ignores the possibility that other situations may result in having moral responsibility DESPITE god still not existing. The dichotomy between atheism and catholicism is not a “One is correct”, it is a “At MOST, one is correct”. Your propositions ignore the possibility of other reasonings or situations. (Although there are good arguments for good out there, this one is unfortunately a lil flawed)
Argument is sound ~A > ~B B :.A MI: A v ~B DS: A v ~ B B :. A Conclusion: A Premise is wrong. Matters of fact can not prove or disprove metaphysical hypotesis like god or free will. From "we have morals" does not follow "there is free will" etc
I have a question: will this affect the moral significance of Christ’s choosing t live a sinless life? Common understanding is that Christ, being 2nd person of the trinity, could not really have done sin. So, if the possibility of alternate choices is paramount to convey free will, was Christ free (in a libertarian sense, not compatibilist) while on earth? Or can we explain this in terms of his two natures and say he had libertarian free will wrt to his human nature and the same freedom God had wrt to his divine nature: in so far as God the father is not limited bcus he can’t lie, for example, similarly Christ, in his divine nature, is also not limited bcus he could not sin?
In “The Brothers Karamazov,” Dostoevsky stated that if there is a God, anything is possible; if there isn’t a God, anything is permissible.
Great book and author, even though he hated the Catholic Church
@@bucksfan77 That is an unfortunate trait of the author and his works. Late last year, “Crisis” magazine published an online article by Darrick Taylor that goes into the topic. It’s worth checking out.
Just finished the book. Don't remember reading that first part, but yes Ivan believes the 2nd part. Worth the read, not for its answers but for its questions.
And that's a stupid quote from Dostoevsky. It presupposes that morality or moral obligations cannot exist without theism, a position overwhelmingly rejected by most professional ethicists.
@@analyticallysound2716 Yeah and most "professional" ethicists also support abortion and all kinds of evil.
As a former atheist, I didn’t, at first, realise the blatant hypocrisy of the atheist position on these matters. When I look back at some of Hitchens’ arguments, for example, they’re embarrassingly poor. And I feel some shame in parroting them. That said, I also understand that I had to go through that stage in order to later truly appreciate Christ as our real and living God. I can only strive to right those former wrongs. And so in some way I wish I never doubted to begin with.
Same. I thought I was soooo smart. 😂
You can't cite a single one of the arguments you feel is poor because you don't want to embarrass yourself.
@@Dram1984 Oof… same! That sense of feeling so much smarter and wiser than those who are and have been duped, only to later realise your own foolishness and arrogance… priceless feeling that is🤣
I know the feeling.
@@avishevin1976 Sure, one that is on topic and which I think is my favourite one, is where he does a complete revisionism of history and modern politics, and makes the claim that North Korea, the USSR etc., are always examples of theism, as opposed to atheism and the moral bankruptcy that follows it.
"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools," Romans 1:22
and? really, that verse may as well be replaced with a meme depicting non-believers as soyjacks and believers as chads for all the good it does
@@ChristineVress Except if you little liar actually read it, you'd know it's talking about people who lost the real faith and follow things of the world, which perfectly describes atheists. Nice try, though.
@@thejuiceking2219 cope
@@ChristineVress if you are bothered to comprehend, it is referring to people who have moved away from god. If you think that the letter is only for the christians in rome, why it is included in bible?
@@thejuiceking2219 You are deeply historically illiterate. Christianity was born of a POLYTHEIST world. You cannot grasp what God means and is without first grasping what gods meant and were. That requires a full Classical Education. Do you have one? Obviously not. Go get a real education.
I could have cared less over what they say, when their biggest influencer admits he would rather live in a society with a Christian culture after all his work to dismantle said Christian culture
Agreed. Dawkins said outright he wants Christianity... but he doesn't want Christ. In other words, he wants all of the benefits, but none of the responsibility that comes with it.
@@sidwhiting665
What responsibility do Christians have that others don't?
It's not so much that Christians have a responsibility that others don't, inasmuch as it is that Christians observe a responsibility that others won't - to worship God and give Him the honor that He is due.
@@sidwhiting665 Yes he portrayed by characters all throughout salvation history in scripture!
@@avishevin1976Christians in baptism recieve the call to be saints. If you look what kind of lives the canonized saints went through, that's something to chew on isn't it?
So if you want a christian society without being a christian yourself, you want to benefit from the love of neighbor the saints are trying to have, withoit giving them back what they're due. That's morally bad. It's also morally bad to reap the benefits of God's love to you, like existing, without loving Him back by recieving baptism, that's why you have the responsibility to get baptized and recieve that call too.
I'm a former pagan looking into Catholicism. Thanks for the videos you made and will make. You're a huge help with healing past religious trauma and false information.
Listen to Bishop Robert Barron
I used to be pagan too! I’ve been Catholic for two years now this year and people have been so welcoming and kind to me even after telling them what I converted from. God bless you on your journey! :)
i would avoid any religion that supports slavery and discrimination like Catholicism
@@gatsbygoodwood2575 ya same i never cared enough to look in to it much.
@@gatsbygoodwood2575Well, the Church does have a bad history. Secrecy? They've been very open about their beliefs from the start. The Papacy is fine, but Papal supremacy is neither biblical nor historical. And Catholics and Orthodox do not worship Mary. We simply venerate her because she gave birth to God in the flesh, or Jesus.
However Catholicism just has so many theological issues and inconsistentsies that that's why I encourage people to look to Orthodoxy which has remained unchanged since it was established.
I do find Rovert Sapolsky's account of no free will interesting. During his conversation with Alex O'Connor he did mention that he only practices the philosophy of no free will for something like 3 minutes a month.
Even he freely chooses not to believe his own philosophy, lol
Usually the proponents of "no free will" do some pretty nefarious things behind the scene, (Stephen hawking). So it makes sense why they push it so much
@@tonyl3762Free Will may not exist, but that does not mean it's obvious that it doesn't exist.
We may be able to know that in any kind of ultimate sense, uou are not 'responsible' for your actions, but even in that case, if you tried to kill someone, it still looks as though you wanted to killed them. No free will does not mean that feeling is immediately alleviated.
The way I put it is by comparing free will to optical illusions. There are tons out there you can try, and even though you may be hyper aware of the fact that it is an illusion, you see them nonetheless.
I can be knowledgeable in the idea that free will does not exist, though that doesn't render me unable to feel as though it was I who created an artpiece and still feel proud about it.
@@Eliza-rg4vw Or perhaps you don't really ultimately know that but merely have a desire to avoid responsibility for something or anything? (You certainly did NOT provide a demonstration or argument, lol.) Are you choosing to believe free will is an illusion like an optical illusion?
You might as well disbelieve anything and everything (including your own "knowledge" regarding free will) if you are going to choose to believe reality is inherently deceptive and illusory. But that itself is self-defeating/self-refuting. Imagine a world of deception/illusion and contradiction all you want, but don't claim to have any "knowledge."
@@tonyl3762 Perhaps! I do think you'd need to provide evidence for that, as as far as I can tell, I am not saying what I am now in order to avoid responsibility. If free will does exist, I'd take as much responsibility then as I do now. I'm aware my actions have a lot more non-me things than I'd like to the point where I don't have free will, but that doesn't mean I don't have the illusion of responsibility either. If I say something to someone that hurts them, sure, I said that because of some external stimuli that had me say that, but it still looks and feels as if I said those things to hurt the person, and I would take responsibility for it.
From what I can tell, free will is, in effect, like an optical illusion. You can try inserting words like "choose" there all you want to make it sound like free will needs to exist for this to happen and / or like it's not a serious option, but it's just more simply the conclusion I'm currently at given what I know about our decision-making processes. Does the analogy at least make sense?
P2 is a slippery slope and quite frankly I don't really care for it at this time.
It's funny when the atheist who doesn't believe in freewill seems to get angry at the theist's actions or beliefs. It's like dude, but I couldn't believe anything else...
To be fair, I think an atheist who does not believe in free will wouldn't be mad at the person, but at the ideology. Something like I wouldn't hate the Germans in 1945, but I would definitely hate the Nazi ideology. As such, since you assume people have no blame for what ideologies they choose, you only try to change or remove toxic ideologies.
Yes and if we evolving by means of survival of the fittest, then surely evolving in such a way as to obtain eternal life is the ultimate survival instinct. Must be a natural process!
@@wordforever117
Yeah... several issues with that. The belief that you have it despite not having it can help soothe the mind but it doesn't help you survive beyond that. If you actually aim to get eternal life then recognizing you don't have it and striving to attain it will yield better results than simply believing you have it when you don't.
In the context of actual evolution would say the inclination towards supernatural beliefs was fostered and the much more common aversion to death with that is what amounts to making up a supernatural eternal life. So it is more of a byproduct of what early minds did rather than directly evolution itself.
@@wordforever117the brain rot in this comment section is truly astounding
@@Boundless_Border It is an interesting theory but I don't think there is any evidence to back it up. Man has been religious since pre-historic times. All civilisations at all times have been religious. It transcends cultures and societies. The evidence point much more to man being instinctively religious because even self proclaimed atheists. They will consistently appeal to a higher power or external measure of goodness, or make statements of absolute truth for which there must be a transcendent arbiter.
All instincts within man have two things in common.... the thing they strive for exists, and the same thing is required to sustain life.
Food, water, oxygen, reproduction, even fight or flight...and prayer.
When it comes down to it, when a crisis gets too much to bear, when there is no hope left.... *everyone* prays
"Are you freely choosing not to believe in free will?" -me asking a fellow college PHIL 101 classmate who said he didn't believe in free will
@@LilySage-mf7uf Which is exactly why this atheistic position provides no rational grounds for moral judgement. It only allows for mere feelings.
@@LilySage-mf7ufyeah so if I believe something you find morally evil, you can’t blame me because I didn’t choose it. Your position is like a perverted sort of reverse-calvinism
@@LilySage-mf7uf OH, so your position is just "a given"? Ever heard of begging the question? Circular reasoning? Assuming what you should be trying to prove/demonstrate?
People often choose not to be convinced, even in the face of air-tight logic/arguments. People often don't want to be convinced for various selfish reasons (the examples are endless). People are not machines that have to follow logic to its natural conclusions.
@@LilySage-mf7uf yes, you can make a judgement, but not a rational one. For it to be rational, there would need to be free will, as well as real values of good and bad. I appreciate the example of the tree you used, but it still "falls" short, lol. I'll see myself out, but before I do, can you show that the tree falling is bad? Sure it could be harmful, but why is harm bad? Is it because we just don't like it?
What if someone does like, and prefers the tree to fall and hurt someone? Is it then good? I don't believe this framework can account for any moral choice in terms of judgement, as the only judgement or conflict would be conflicted feelings.
@@LilySage-mf7uf you haven’t answered my question. Why is harm or causing pain a bad thing in an atheistic world. Do you just not like it? Did we deem it bad because the majority doesn’t like it?
This is the main reason I'm not atheist. There is no foundation for objective moral obligations or free will.
It is manifestly untrue upon observation of the world
All morality is subjective, even yours. Free will exists or it doesn't. The existence of a deity doesn't change that.
Wrong. Do some research, there are plenty of foundations for moral obligations outside of divine commands.
@@avishevin1976 "All morality is subjective", as the vast majority of societies agree and have arrived to this morality independently.
I think you know that you don't actually believe this.
@@newglof9558
The most significant moral issue in the US today is abortion. There are vehement disagreements, sometimes leading to violence, over the morality of the practice.
Explain how morality is objective if there are two camps at polar opposite positions, with a whole spectrum in between.
And that's just the most obvious example. People disagree on the morality of minor acts all the time. Morality is subjective.
Or if you see it my way, moral truths and conscienceless is inherit in every aspect of reality and more broadly the understanding of the whole and therefore the Whole is a directing mind, as truth, morals, perfection, beauty, make no sense unless they are inherit in the nature of the Whole, and moreover they are understood truths and therefore require a trinitarian conscienceless as the directing Whole.
I already know how the anti-free will types will respond to that first point. They'll say "It's true that we don't have free will and people can't choose a different path, but we're saying 'be better' to make them go down that determined pathway instead."
That’s interesting to me. At what point does the question of whether we “actually” have free will matter, if at all certain point not having a choice is indistinguishable from what having a choice looks like.
Yes. Saying things is an action and an action can have a deterministic effect on the object of the action. No free will required.
I don't believe in free will. I believe the chemicals in my brain determine my choices.
The chemicals in my brain respond to external stimuli - so if you give me more data and logic then I will respond to it and "be better". No free will is needed.
So right! I woke in the middle of the night with that podcast running through my mind. I couldn't sleep while my mind, over and over again, ran through the very argument you make here.
All of these pop atheists' arguments can be boiled down to one simple statement: "If God, why bad thing happen?"
No it can't, my lack of a belief in Gods has got nothing to do with the problem of evil😭. I just don't believe it because I haven't seen any decent evidence that suggests the God's any religion describe exist, That is the main argument for atheism (the lack of beliefs in God not the truth statement "there is no gods" btw)
@@willt3982 did I say your specific argument? Or did I say "pop atheists"?
@@mattstiglic My bad, but I still disagree. I'm sure these pop up atheists which are probably smarter then me can come up with better arguments then the problem of evil.
@@willt3982 Have you ever asked him yourself if he is real? I did. It was like i was on fire.
@@Crikey420 Yeah many times when I was younger, nothing happened why?
Why do these atheists not blame Orthodox Jews for the Old Testament?
They do although the Book of Revelation is much harsher.
@@tomasrocha6139Since when? I never see Jews being held to any such account.
To steelman it, Orthodox Jews don't actively proselytize like Christians do. So while I'm sure they would be happy to bring the argument up in a debate with an orthodox Jew, Jews are not the primary group of people telling atheists "you need to believe this book."
@@noneofyourbusiness7965 Watch Alex O' Connor''s debate with Ben Shapiro, he brings up slavery forced marriage to female captives.
cause if you put blame on Jews then you anti-sematic and a Nazi, which is mind boggling given that somewhere around 1-3 million Catholics also died in the holocaust
All love and prayers to you brother trent from an Eastern Orthodox in Syria.
I have been an atheist for 20 years and always believed in free will. Not sure where the rejection of free will came from. Even if you believe that we are programed for certain desires you can still stear away from them. We may have an innate desire to want to eat fries, a burger, and lava cake for desert but you can still say " can't do it. I am on a diet"
"you can still say " can't do it. I am on a diet"
Yes. But there is a reason why you are on a diet, right? And there is a reason why you choose to follow the diet rather than indulge in your desire for food, right?
It's all cause and effect, there is no place for us to put this "free will" into anything.
The only reason we feel that we have free will is that contemplating all the network of causes and effects is to complicated in most cases.
@WhiteScorpio2 so because you had a reason to make a choice means you did not make a choice? That makes no sense especially when you realize people make decisions contrary to their wellbeing or to their nature.
@@nickdesanto6119 "so because you had a reason to make a choice means you did not make a choice?"
You made a choice, you just had no free will in making that choice.
"That makes no sense"
The idea of free will makes no sense. So how is this "free will" making decisions? Something happening either is determined by pre-existing causes or isn't, thus being random, but free will is somehow neither? That's logically impossible.
Please elaborate how you imagine free will works. Let's say someone offers me a choice of apple or orange juice. Please describe the process of me choosing one or another without appealing to deterministic causes or randomness.
"people make decisions contrary to their wellbeing"
So? There are more causes to human behavior than care about their wellbeing.
"to their nature"
I have no idea what you mean by "nature" and how you determined that someone made a decision contrary to it.
Are you just assuming that there is some magical "higher nature"? Why?
@WhiteScorpio2 No, I do not believe in a Devine or magical nature.for example, would you say it is natural for someone to try to preserve their life? Yet people choose to give their lives for strangers, ideals, and hopeless causes. People chose an option that is not rational or determined. We are not robots following the most logical path. Also you can not change your life if there was no free will. If you are that hedonistic person that takes drugs, sex and fine food and drink you can't change because you can not freely choose to listen to that friend that says you are killing yourself, choose to keep a clean life, choose to struggle against your habits. If you say the contrary in a world view with out free will you either have to assume that some how this person was always the pleasure seeking fool and the person predisposed to clean up his act or personality is itself random.
@WhiteScorpio2 No, I do not mean a transient or Devine "human nature." Would you not agree that humans naturally will take choices to prolong or improve their life. If so, why would some people be determined to give their life for a stranger or act irrationally. It make sense if they had a free choice. Also, say you are a hedonistic person who likes drugs, sex, and fine food and drink. How can one change their life without the free choice to listen to their friend telling them they are killing themself or freely choosing to refrain from their desires and tendencies? Are they both determined to be the hedonistic and the person wanting to improve their life at the same time, or did the person have free will and chose to be a different person?
For the record, Richard Dawkins does not want to debate philosophers like Craig because Craig's methodology is: "Premise 1, Conlusion 2, ... " 😂😂😂😂
Sounds like a disjunctive syllogism
He keeps on changing his reasons 😂😂
@@charles13773And? When you wipe your ass after a shitstorm, is there more than one reason?
Great timing! I'm currently working on a paper defending free will for my philosophy class. I'd like to use your burning building example for my paper to demonstrate the necessity of moral responsibility in society, if that's okay.
You need to do more rebuttals of memes, is so funny
This reminds me of the moral dilemma that Joker sets up for Batman in The Dark Knight (spoilers; if you haven't seen it, you should stop reading this and watch it).
When the Joker is being interrogated by Batman, he reveals that not only has Harvey Dent been taken captive, but also Harvey's fiancee (and Bruce Wayne's secret love interest) Rachel Dawes, whom the Joker suspects Batman is romantically involved with due to dramatic actions he took to rescue her earlier in the film.
He gives Batman their separate locations and tells him that he doesn't have much time before they're both killed, so he has to choose. Batman decides to save Rachel, and gives Harvey's location to the police, hoping to outsmart the Joker and save both.
The Joker has already outsmarted Batman however, because he swapped the addresses, and he knew the police wouldn't be able to respond in time anyway.
If Rachel dies, Harvey and Batman are devastated, and if Harvey dies, Rachel is devastated along with Gotham's ray of hope.
Batman shows up to save Rachel, and finds Harvey. Gotham PD shows up right as Rachel is killed.
Should Batman feel guilty about not saving Rachel? Perhaps, but he TRIED. And that's the important part.
If funny cuz these atheists would say will my arguments are “an internal critique” of the religion, to try to brush this argument.
Maybe I'm just dumb, but why would free will and atheism be incompatible with each other?
its not the video is just intellectually dishonest
They are not, religious apologists are unable to be honest
There are non-determinist atheists, but many of the prominent ones are determinist. This video was to them.
Because it's very difficult for atheists to demonstrate that free will actually exists within the parameters of materialism. Outside of Providence, there's very little indication that free will exists. It would seem that it is all chemicals in our brains reacting to stimuli. Thus being deterministic.
It's much more consistent for an atheist to reject free will than presuming it and not give a coherent reason.
I'm sure it can be done. But I haven't actually found a good argument that doesn't have some incoherency within itself.
I am dumb - This is because free will is a result of chemical reactions in your brain or the synapses that happen before an action or thought. So there is no way about it. There is no Free-Wi cir Aethiests. No god. Then the rational explanation is science.
Unless you dont believe in Science.
Can you respond to Joe Schmid's rebuttal of this video?
Can you link us to the video in question please?
Wonderful logic ! Way to go Trent!
Not really. He doesn't understand what makes people make choices. He just thinks we are made of magic or something and have complete control of everything all the time. Let me ask you this. If you are hungry do you get more easily upset? You do no question about it. Thats because our body and brain is lacking nutrients wich effects our mood and mental state. We are slaves to things our body needs not slaves to morality, morality is a made up concept the reality is people act and work differently because their mind and body works differently. You in reality have 0 control over yourself. You can regulate these changes in a more negative mindset like eating in the previous example but in the end you can't stop that from happening if you don't eat you are guaranteed to get more angry and upset if you are on an empty stomach meaning you don't have free will, you have the power to prevent the situation of getting hungry from happening and in extension getting angry but you don't have the power to go without food and and control how your emotions and how you act. This means that no we don't have complete control of our actions only the power to prevent that situation from occuring. We don't have complete free will. We have a lot of free will but not complete
@@skigui9078 Uhh, If there's freewill then there's some transcendence, no two ways about it. It's like an ocean that delivers water to a tap which delivers water to a household. The ocean symbolizes the much bigger complex transcendence of the consciousness of the soul, while the tap represents the body and the household represents the physical world. If the tap is damaged(body is damaged) then the water supply to the household(how you perform in the world and interact with the world) is affected despite the fact that the ocean is doing just fine( so a damaged body manifests negatively despite the soul being intact). Likewise, if the ocean becomes salty, there's nothing the tap by itself can do, so we have a negative outcome from the tap despite the tap being completely functional (a healthy , well fed, educated person can still make bad decisions and do evil). So you see, it's a mutual interaction, the soul needs the body to interact with the world and so if the body is damaged or needs something, it can inhibit the workings of the soul, our thoughts, our choices. However the body can be perfectly catered for but we still make bad or detrimental decisions. So it's not either body or soul, it's body and soul involved in the equation here.
No logic was used in this video. Only logical fallacies. The one he used the most is called "appeal to consequences" fallacies.
Hello Trent, can you please make a video refuting the claim that "Rome never fell, it just became a church". I hear that argument often, and protestants/athiest often point towards that fact that *most* Catholic countries in Europe today, where once part of the Roman empire.
Why does that need to be refuted though? If you believe in the church, that could be God placing his church within an institution that it could easily spread within.
Determinism isn't an atheist argument. It's held by many people of different beliefs surrounding the subject of belief in gods. You can hold people responsible while still believing in determinism.
Hi Trent!
Could you do a episode about the government banning contraception (all/just the bad for health/just the abortifacient) or banning civil divorce (all/whiches?)?
Sometimes these themes are discuted and I don’t think there is a Church’s document about this.
Thanks!
There are multiple sources and documents from the Catholic Church regarding divorce and contraception. As for divorce only being allowed in situations of danger, divorce can also be granted in cases of adultery.
advocating for discrimination and dictatorship is the religious way it seems. removing free will is what religiously immoral people seem to want to do.
@@jags6868 but its discrimination that is being applied here.
Spolsky is also one of these hacks who self exempts his own thoughts. So we need to get over the idea of hating any person for anything they've done because they have no free will, but we have free will in order to have to "get over the idea" of hating others for their predetermined actions. This is not logically consistent. It seems as though Sapolsky doesn't believe himself.
Thanks Trent always for defending/teaching our faith to those that are having a hard time comprehending God! I needed to hear this for such a long time. I just can’t fathom the mindset of atheists 😮God Bless you and your family ❤️🌎✝️
Thank you so much for supporting the channel and watching! -Vanessa
Great video!
You very concisely explained the matter
Christ is King!
Devils Advocate here:
Could this same argument be used against Theism? Theism holds that predestination and free will are compatible does it not?
Isn't this the same as arguing that determinism and free will are compatible?
The Catholic view of double predestination isn’t Calvinistic. Hope this helps
Free will.... unless you're Pharaoh, in which case "god" will harden your heart to manipulate an outcome.
Grown adults should know better.
Hi, @TheCounselofTrent ! Is there a reason why this episode wasn’t posted on the audio version of the podcast? 🤔
In fairness, determinism is not a unique idea to atheism nor did it come up with the theory. Reformed theology and Islamic fatalism both hold forms of this and have for centuries
The theodicies for those two faiths are different than atheism's though, which rejects theodicy outright
@newglof9558 well obviously but I'm just pointing out that arguing that atheism is self refuting because it doesn't hold to free will is very bizarre apologetic. To me the better response Trent could have raised is the fact that atheists are entirely unable to make any moral judgments at all since they don't have an objective standard, and they can't fall back to making this an internal critique because Dawkins for example clearly argues against God and debating Craig due to his own perception of immorality in God's actions. The irony is that he has no basis to criticize God's actions since he can't say that anyone is responsible for their actions AND that actions have a moral value associated with them. For Dawkins, the problem is that his own moral intuitions (which are largely Christian whether he admits or not) are in his worldview completely arbitrary, and thus it makes no sense to criticize God for His allegedly arbitrary actions.
Very true. However, atheists raise this as a way to take away moral judgment, while the theistic traditions do not.
I would suggest that the argument for free will is in fact a major counterpoint against Reformed and Islamic theology.
@@jonathanw1106 The point of the video is one element of atheism posited by many prominent atheists and why this element is inconsistent. That's it. It's like a 12 minute video. It doesn't promise much to you.
Question: couldn't one undermine this argument by accepting Determinism (under an Atheistic/Naturalistic viewpoint), but point out that it's untenable for free will to exist under Theism (i.e, if God knows everything, doesn't that mean all events are predetermined/couldn't have occurred in such a way so as to surprise God)?
Wherever you go, free will seems to be absent irrespective of the existence (or nonexistence) of God, or so the argument would go anyways.
Just curious. Cool video otherwise.
I’ve got a thought:
Does being predetermined remove the variable of a human’s free will in their choices being known?
I’d say the variable of free will still is part of the outcome, rather it happens through time as said choices/events occur. :)
I appreciate the thought! :)
With that being said, I'm unsure as to how experiencing free will ("it occurring through time," as you say) renders it real, when from God's perspective, we couldn't have chosen otherwise (given that God's knowledge is infinite, and consequently, nothing should surprise Him, lest that show gaps in His knowledge).
Provided that an all-knowing deity exists (God), how can free will exist? It may feel like it does for us, but that's merely a qualia espoused by fallible and ignorant creatures like ourselves.
(If I'm misunderstanding your thought, I apologize. I may lack the cognitive wherewithal needed to engage your point. I'm uneducated in matters pertaining to theology).
@@S.Awasstolen
"With that being said, I'm unsure as to how experiencing free will ("it occurring through time," as you say) renders it real, when from God's perspective, we couldn't have chosen otherwise (given that God's knowledge is infinite, and consequently, nothing should surprise Him, lest that show gaps in His knowledge)."
I understand the concern, but I feel like such a binary puts God as limited to time itself rather than being outside of time.
I'd say we run the risk of, by our limited faculties, faulting God for our own inability to levy said critique. So, can you maybe help me out understand such a critique is reasonably possible for such truly infnite, timeless Being? :/
@@S.Awasstolen
" It may feel like it does for us, but that's merely a qualia espoused by fallible and ignorant creatures like ourselves."
I actually like this point a lot since I'd say this exact same concern would apply to being able to critique God as He is.
And no, you are engaging more thoughtfully then probably 99% of folks I engage with. Thank you for this. :)
>> "So, can you maybe help me out understand such a critique is reasonably possible for such truly infinite, timeless Being? :/"
No problem!
Regardless of God's position to time (within or outside of it), assuming God is all-knowing, that'd entail His foreknowledge of events (past, present, and future). Wherever He's situated, He should know everything (including events that have yet to occur).
He could be outside of time, and still be all-knowing, right? To be free is to be able to choose otherwise, but how can this be if God already knows what you'll choose (and moreover, you cannot surprise God, for that'd illustrate blanks in His knowledge).
I'll grant you this: when considering the volume of conceptions of God (whether it be of an Judiastic type, Christian type, or Islamic type), it may be the case that one of these "conceptions" of God somehow allow for free will (like, for example, maybe under Judaism's theology, God's nature is less anthropomorphic, and more representative of "Goodness" as an abstraction. I'm just spitballing, but I'm sure you understand what I'm conveying: different theologies offer different natures of God, and maybe, one of these purported nature's solves this dilemma of free will).
>> "I actually like this point a lot since I'd say this exact same concern would apply to being able to critique God as He is."
Absolutely. Presuming (somehow) that human perception, for as rational and moral as it can be, is ALWAYS such (or even usually such) is an error made too frequently (and most astonishingly, by intelligent and well-reasoned people in most regards).
>> "And no, you are engaging more thoughtfully then probably 99% of folks I engage with. Thank you for this. :)"
You're too kind. I shudder thinking of what sort of company you keep if "99%" aren't as thoughtful as this meager post of mine. Nevertheless, thank you.
I've thought through this issue before. In an atheistic view, every particle was set in motion 14 billion years ago and follows a set of universal laws of physics. If our particles have been destined to do something from the beginning of time, we can't have free will.
most the physicist i know are not determinists. they aren’t exactly the free will type either but land in some sense of both.
I dont think i have a concise counter. But it just struck me, if an athiest makes this argument, they are also stating that "morality is a social game" in which they play along, and that moral judgement is related to the rules set of this game.
There are two kinds of games that you can play, an outer game, and an inner game. Outer games have objective well defined rules that are easily cross referenced and so outward performance can be checked against. The rules only govern behavior. Inner games are set by a mixture of drives (which have rules for how to follow them and the corresponding feedback in your biology) and internal moral systems (which have intrinsic rewards and punishments). The inner game governs behavior, intention, thought and intentionality. And in a large way all of these are construed as inner behaviors to the individual.
To me it seems like the atheist is arguing that they dont need god as long as they play the inner moral game. Even if the rewards are intrinsic, since the inner game relates to outer behavior, should they expose their inner game like by talking about an experience, they can be judged by those who also play the inner moral game. That is, regardless of the final source or end of moral ideas, an athiest just has to play the game enough to get what they want and that since it is a game with worldly consequences both for pleasure and social gain/loss, they can justify playing it even if there is no true moral justification.
This obviously takes for granted the fact that man has moral drives, it lacks any desire to investigate purpose, and it ignores cases where men simply choose not to play any of those games or where they rebel against those games. Not being able to properly judge men who are openly and inwardly amoral is a big deficit.
As a catholic this sort of athiestic idea is pretty unsatisfying. But it does not seem to me to be entirely so easy to dismiss. Maybe i am formulating it poorly. But to me this seems like the issue.
The argument I gave below is another way to respond. As to free will, not only do we need a standard to call anything “good” or “bad” we need rationality and free will.
On naturalism and evolution we don’t seem to have an account of either free will or rationality.
Since evolution’s mechanism is on survivability rather than obtaining true beliefs there seems to be no way that true beliefs would survive the survival of the fittest function! The football players would always obliterate the chess team leading to brawns but not brains.
For more see Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism
first off, figuring out what's true and what's not true can be useful in regards to survival
second off, survival of the fittest is sketchy in that regard, it's more a case of 'what works works', like butt fluff, scientists couldn't figure out the purpose of butt fluffy, so the general consensus as to why we have it is simply that there wasn't enough of a reason for us to get rid of it, not having butt fluff wasn't enough of an evolutionary downside to phase it out
thirdly, just because those mechanisms weren't based on obtaining true beliefs but survival doesn't mean they can't be used for that, in the same way wood wasn't formed for the purpose of making fires, but it can be used for such a purpose
@@thejuiceking2219
But the problem is sometimes both can be true and you have to make utility based choice
And even tho other thing could be less rational if it's more beneficial
You will still have to accept it
Statistically Religion is better
And therefore since the position of God can't be falsified
And We can take culture and Some morals from Religion
Then we have to practice religion
@@thejuiceking2219Your third point
That would be an intelligent Choice by the Organism
And not Evolutionary gift by Nature
I can also apply the same logic
And then say similarly about religion and God
@@thejuiceking2219Survival of Fittest is not hard to understand
There are cases where it's difficult to put things into places or understand them well
But in most cases we can easily see what is happening
And it's basically
"Who adapts will survive,those who don't won't survive"
I can say same things about non Religious and Atheist societies
And make a Utility based claim
@@harsha6937 okay, just to be clear, when you say God can't be falsified, are you specifically talking about the christian God, or just any creator deity?
because the christian God can be refuted, since the bible is the source of the christian God, so if you can refute the bible you can refute God
for just any creator deity not defined by a religion, i'll be 100% honest, i don't think i could dispute that for any reason outside of 'i see no reason to believe that'
the more I learn the more I am baffled by how one can be an atheist. sin truly blinds the intellect. Thanks be to God for His mercy and grace! Viva Cristo Rey
No problem, we find becoming a Christian equally absurd.
Yep everyone you disagree with is just sinful that must be it
Can you explain more from a Catholic perspective why you view “there is moral responsibility” as a given, since it is the crux of denying all of the pro-determinism arguments in the video? Incompatibilists like Sapolsky would just say that our perception of moral responsibility is evolved just like our “illusion” of free will is evolved
Not all atheists believe in determinism. Objectivists, for example, believe in free will.
He states early on that determinism is "common" to "many" athiests but later predicates it of all athiests
Another major problem with determinism is simply the absurdity of the fact that if your thoughts are simply the result of molecules in motion, then you are not "thinking" your thoughts in any meaningful way. They are things happening as the result of natural processes, not intentionality.
If you do not intentionally think your thoughts, then "You" do not exist in any meaningful way.
The very idea of personhood depends upon free will. There is no such thing as a person without will. There is no such thing as intellect or mind, without will.
Thus the notion of determinism creates and absolutely absurd image of reality in which a person that does not exist, is thinking that another person which does not exist is morally blame-worthy for thoughts that person did not think, and actions that the non-existent person took, because the non-existent person had desires which are also simply the result of molecules in motion.
And yet they have the gall to think of themselves as rational and the proponents of reason. Ironically, this just adds another layer of absurdity to their situation. A person who cannot think, and doesn't exist, considers themselves to be better at thinking in accord with reality, than a person who also does not exist, and can't think, who has different molecules moving in a different pattern.
Also, a comment on the whole conquest of Canaan thing. One of the charges that is leveled against Christians who defend God's command to kill the children is that they believe "God commanded it therefore it is just."
Which can be seen as a Voluntarist, arbitrary position whatever God commands becomes good. In the Euthyphro dilemma this would be the "it is good because the gods love it" option.
In this view there essentially is nothing which is objectively good, good and evil are subjectively determined by God.
However, there is another possibility here.
Consider that God knows the good and does good, because it is good.
We know imperfectly and can know the good, but we also acknowledge that God's knowledge of the good is infinitely better than ours.
Thus it is possible that God's knowledge of the good and our knowledge of the good can conflict because he would know something to be good that we would think is bad.
Given that reality, a wise person could say "I believe this is good because God commanded it" without meaning that goodness is arbitrarily determined by God's fiat. Rather in this case, the statement would simply be a statement of faith, that I trust God to know the good, better than I know the good, thus I will defer my judgement to his judgement.
This is, pretty much, what the entire book of Job is about.
I have also heard it argued that the utter conquest of Canaan was likely war hyperbole not literal which was incredibly common in literature at the time. There are many different explanations of that event in the Bible and I'm honestly still thinking through it. Now I'll have to listen to Horns apologetic on it to compare
but since god is imaginary its hard to say much about how it affects any thing.
@@hippywillimagination isnt real so how can you say that
@@filler7149 What a brilliant strawman. How did you go from determinism to non existence ? Just because the universe is deterministic doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.
@@trompette4485if everything is determined then imagination isnt real because imagination is a thought process and you as a robot cant think
I was making a cheeky jab at the inconsistence
You guys must hear strawmen in your walls
Think there might be a HIPPA violation or 2 for whoever made that B roll clip of looking at a MRI at 6:28
The problem for atheists runs even deeper that what you lay out here. Dawkins and co are mad at Craig because they think he was *irrational.* That is, they think he reasoned *incorrectly* and *should* have reasoned differently. But just as their determinism requires that Craig could not have morally chosen differently, so it holds that he could not have reasoned differently. In all cases, given the premises of atheistic materialism, one's decisions, choices, and conclusions are entirely determined by irrational, blind forces without remainder, and universal abstract laws of logic and objective truth have no actual part in it.
As the atheists' primal anger suggests, morality and rationality are closely intertwined. In fact, man is a moral animal with free will *precisely because* man is a rational animal, and atheistic material determinism implies the non-existence of real moral choice only as a secondary effect, as it first and foremost implies the non-existence of real rational decision-making.
So it's not just that materialist atheists have no grounds for condemning Craig morally. They have no grounds for holding that he's being any less rational than they are. In fact, they have no grounds for holding that a young-earth creationist or someone who thinks the universe is resting on an infinite pile of turtles is any less rational than they are. To be consistent with their view, they must accept that all of their views (including materialist atheism itself) are utterly arbitrary with no rational basis whatsoever.
Plus, you're actually arguing that given the factual account--without any mystical dressing--that genocide happened and could only happen. So you may be throwing a tantrum about what nobody could prevent, but you're not really providing that much more *opposition* to it--especially Sapolsky who thinks it's absurd to hate the Israelites for massive bloodshed, because it's not like they could do other.
Joe Schmid is typing...
edit: well well well this aged well
I don't know why this is so funny
God, now I'm hyped
I’m an infant nanny and what I know to be true is that people’s minds and behaviors are developed and influenced by the treatment they received during early childhood. For example an infant who is left to cry alone (more than the “occasional few minutes while you’re in the shower) but on a chronic level, that child’s mind will be damaged by the neglect of her mother/father. We do have free will but what happens in early childhood affects how we use that free will and a person’s behavior and understanding of every aspect of life.
Do we kill baby Hitler or do we teach baby Hitler’s mother to be a better parent?
That book quote from Sapolsky a showed me who are the ones that are ideologically captured. When someone wrongs you so bad your body naturally reacts in anger to seek retribution but I guess the feelings of the victim doesn't matter, they are unnatural but what ever the criminals does was not his choice.
The bomb-in-the-head scenario reminded me of the Marvel comic Secret Wars, where the heroes make the decision to fight Dr Doom, after he has stolen the Beyonder's powers. They are instantly annihilated after the choice has been made, but they still made the choice.
There's just one problem with this argument. Sure some atheists might not believe in free will, but there are many of us who do. Our upbringing and circumstances might influences our choices but we still have free will.
I don't believe in God. I believe in free will. I don't see the incompatibility. I clearly chose to write this comment right? I didn't have to. I am an agent with free will.
Keep in mind...Trent thinks Galileo and those persecuted under the Spanish Inquisition..."had it coming".
A simpler and yet similar argument: if you can figure out it's unjust, then God can as well. The appeal to "ought", a sense of justice that isn't evidenced by the record of history and isn't naturally occuring, is either a complete delusion akin to a mental disease or it corresponds to something transcendant that actually exists.
Maybe the Pharaoh kept them in Egypt because he knew they were an uncivilized bunch that would wander around doing things like that.
14:15 - This is called a Hobson's Choice, in case you're interested.
Not all atheists deny free will.
No one said all atheists deny free will. What we're saying is they cannot justify or prove that it exists. In other words, they make irrational claims that free will exists. If you know of a rational way for atheists to claim and prove free will, I'd be interested to hear about it.
Does that mean they affirm it? Such affirmation begs for explanation. How do collections of atoms and molecules obtain free will?
@@tonyl3762 We evolved to be able to make choices. See Daniel Dennett. Compatibilism.
What's funny to me, sadly, is that Christians say they believe in free will....but what does that mean?
You picked your Catholic or Muslim parents?
Being born to Catholic or Muslim parents, especially if they're reasonably nice, provide good resources, etc., means you have little chance to not be very influence to be Catholic or Muslim.
Children are told "honor your parents" and in Islam, this is a command, to take care of your parents until they are gone.
So, take a child, "train him up" and "he'll not depart from it," sort of disproved libertarian free will.
Compatibilism is a good middle ground. I tend to lean towards Dennett away from Robert S.
@@michaelsbeverly Sorry, but the hand-waving magic of the term "evolution" is not an evidential explanation or demonstration that quarks, bosons, atoms, molecules, chemicals, etc. can become conscious and make choices. Please provide some actual evidence, logic, reasons. At least evolutionary biologists provide examples of intermediary organisms to demonstrate the evolution of physiological structures. Unfortunately, you won't find consciousness, thoughts, and choices preserved in fossils.
I believe Dennett is one who believes that we are our brain and that our brain controls "us" rather than there being a person who makes choices. This view has been persuasively countered from what I've seen.
You're showing a lot of ignorance and presumption.... Not all Christians believe in free will (e.g. Calvinists). You also totally ignore the widespread phenomenon of people abandoning the views of their parents, whether religious or non-religious, regardless of resources, etc. (shouldn't most atheists already be aware of this?). There are even liberal-conservative spectrums within religions. So your measurement of "little chance to not be very influence to be X" is wildly speculative and likely largely inaccurate, though I'm guessing there are some studies out there that do a fair enough job measuring shifting views.
_"he'll not depart from it"_
lol, there are apparently no bounds to misinterpretation of the Bible.... Are you not aware that that verse is found in the book of PROVERBS? Do you know what a proverb is? Do you know what "context" is? That book/verse is not even trying to make a philosophical or sociological statement of fact.
8:17 on the basis that it can make a difference. There is no reason for blaming animals without a sense of morality because the blame can't have any effect on the future behaviour of the animals. There is a reason for blaming humans with a sense of morality because their sense of morality can make them behave differently in the future.
Seems trent's argument hinges on all atheists are determinists, or if you do not believe in determinism you must believe in a god. Not the case. The reason human action is not determined is because our minds are capable of weighing different decisions. A human can understand, at least to the extent of them understanding the situation, the consequences of their choices. And that power of reason is not nessisarily only possible if a god exists.
Thanks for the feedback, Nick! -Vanessa
question: if everything we say and do is all part of God's plan, which has all been planned out ahead of time, then can christians really say we have free will either? is it really free will if all we're doing is following the plan, whether we know it or not?
We don't have free will like driving on a four-wheeler going where ever you want but instead the Bible teachings is more like a train running on tracks and you can choice the track you travel but God ultimately is the one laying down the tracks. No matter which track you chose , rebel against God or repent and submit to God , God will carry out His plan.
@@smidlee7747 except if God is all-knowing then he already knows which of those decisions i'll make, which 'tracks' i'll choose, and so we end end up back at square one; either God's plan isn't how it's laid out to be, or free will for christians in ultimately just an illusion, where everything's already planned out for you and you only think you have a choice in the matter, you have all these difference choices, all these 'tracks', but also i know which tracks you'll choose
@@thejuiceking2219 You are assuming God is bound by time like you. The scripture clearly teach the opposite "Before Abraham was I Am" So it's not like God is looking in the future and see which track you chose , He is already there as well when you make your choice.
Since God knows everything like you said He includes man in the judgment to judge himself. This is repeated many times in scripture.
This is what we mean by free will , God steps back and allows man to judge. The men of Sodom and Gomorrah condemned themselves when they decided they would attack Lot who if it wasn't for him they would still be slaves. God could have judge them immediately for their sins yet He allowed them to judge themselves.
This is why how you treat your fellowman is linked with your relationship with God.
@@smidlee7747why did God give me a soul + brain that is positively convinced that I have no soul?
@@nsinkov It's possible you are blind like a blind who can't see due to the failure of his eyes. I pray God will open your eyes.
When they parade their own definition of morality over that of the God who made the universe that tells you how much they think of themselves.
that doesn't make sense, of course they'd value their definition of morality over the morality of someone they don't believe to exist, by that same logic i could call you arrogant for believing your morals to be superior to those of, say, Allah
You would rather take morality from an ancient book written by people likely affected by socio-economic factors of the time long considered outdated over morality based on empathy, logical understanding and democratic opinion?
Also, the Bible doesn't explicitly condemn pedophilia as far as I am aware. If I am wrong, feel free to correct me on that but if I'm right, know you worship a religion that doesn't condemn pedophiles
You mean what all christians do, interpret the bible according to their own sense of morality or the one of some religious authority?
@thejuiceking2219 Since I root objective morality in the historical Christ and His teachings rather than solely my own reason your analogy does not work. Especially when compared to the a-historical claims made by Islam.
@@hydraph4843 pedophilia is explicitly contrary to Christian Doctrine on marriage since such unions are not oriented to procreation or the mutual partnership toward Holiness. Rather they are rooted in mere subjectively rooted justifications much more appropriate to individualist materialist atheism as paraded on campuses across the country. Your misunderstanding of christian teaching is not surprising given the apparent materialist bias you admit accreditting to history.
3:32 Why is it absurd if this hate is itself determined? The contradictions of this worldview are astounding
Boom! Nicely done!
This video proves that Alex'O' Connor is incredibily intellectual dishonest. There's no way he just doesn't know about these famous criticisms, especiay since he EXPLICITLY affirms predeterminism. He's not interested in having an honest debate. Only in virtue signaling, and feeling the need to tell others how great and morally righteous he is... even though morality is impossible if athiesm is true. It's ridiculous.
Willing to bet he's more than aware of these criticisms and just doesn't find them convincing. Plenty of views of morality don't have any trouble with these objections. More than that, though, there's very good reason to believe free will as a concept isn't just untrue but also logically impossible (a belief which Alex O'Connor personally seems to subscribe to) and none of these arguments really address that.
@@EpixAura "Plenty of views of morality don't have any trouble with these objections."
Conveniently, you and none of the other atheist apologists here are capable of mentioning any of these supposedly numerous "views of morality". Opinion discarded.
@@chormerlyfuchs The obvious objection is to argue against the idea that moral accountability exists (The second premise in his argument) Trent's arguments for moral responsibility are:
1: It's obvious. Saying things are obvious is not an actual argument.
2: If it didn't, people would be justified in doing terrible things for the greater good. This really only applies to more hardline utilitarian views and is a pretty clear false dichotomy. The reason I didn't list in-detail viewpoints on morality is because pretty much everything EXCEPT this specific moral system doesn't have a problem this with.
Disagreeing with Trent's definition of moral accountability also works, as he defines it as the ability to have done differently, which implies the existence of free will. Using a definition of "the ability to do differently in the future" gives us a definition that works just as well without having to imply that. This is the main objection I see being pointed out in the comments here.
@@EpixAura So what if he "doesn't find them convincing"? That's the personal incredulity fallacy, Matt Dillamonkey level argumentation. My point is that if you don't think free will exists, you can't hold any one morally culpable for their actions, because they were just predermined to do an evil action. So WLC can't be held morally "responsible" for defending "slaughter", because he was just predermined to do that, which makes Alex super dishonest. Also there is an pressupositional argument to be made for the neccesity of free will, but even if that wasn't the case i was just pointing out that Alex is dishonest for on one hand telling people that he doesn't think there's any logical reason to blame someone for their actions, but on the other, when it's convinient for him to get a bunch of views for condemning WLC for defending "slaughter", suddenly we don't notice a contradiction in his argumentation, and everything is fine.
@@Anderson-vj8sh If Alex publicly said something to that effect and acted as though that settled the matter, it certainly would be an argument from incredulity, but that's not what's happened. Realistically he likely has reasons for not finding them convincing, and while I don't have access to his thoughts on the matter on account of not being Alex, if the argument is specifically "Moral responsibility as Trent defines it is incompatible with determinism, therefore its logically inconsistent for Alex (or anyone who doesn’t believe in free will) to hold someone morally responsible” then there’s a few objections that can be raised.
First is to object to Trent’s definition of moral responsibility. Rather than “someone is morally responsible if they can be blamed or praised for an action” something like “someone is morally responsible if they could feasibly have acted differently if they (A) have a sufficient understanding of morality and (B) could have been incentivized to do otherwise, with the amount of moral responsibility they have scaling inversely with the amount of incentive needed” still provides a working definition that lines up with all of Trent’s examples without excluding determinism. There are likely much better definitions but a lot of comes down to what you believe the purpose of moral accountability/responsibility to be and that’s an absolutely insane rabbit hole to go down.
Second is to deny the existence of moral accountability entirely. Plenty of views on morality don’t necessarily need moral agents or moral accountability for their framework to be consistent. While my knowledge of this of this particular viewpoint isn’t even really surface level, emotivism (which Alex generally subscribes to) is one of these as far as I can tell. It may look as though he’s holding WLC morally responsible for his views, but from his perspective he’s just expressing the emotional opinion of “I dislike slaughter. Boo, slaughter.” which is a statement that doesn’t care about determinism or free will at all.
On a more pedantic note, it can also be argued that Alex WASN’T condemning WLC or his opinions but simply playing Devil’s advocate which is generally what he does on the podcast. I don’t particularly care to push this point since I’m more interested in the philosophical part of the discussion and I’m not entirely convinced of this point myself and can’t fault anyone for being unconvinced by it, but I’ve seen enough people in the comments point it out that I feel a little bit obligated to say it.
The main problem with Trent's arguments are that they randomly link atheism with determinism. They also fail to address whether or not determinism is true or is it an illusion.
Whilst I'm an Atheist I can't be sure which is true, determinism or free will. I accept they appear incompatible however am unsure which is correct (though they both appear to be). Is it possible that there is some unknown mechanism which allows both to exist; I don't know.
The problem of free will exists for both a deterministic view point and a belief in an omniscient God.
However I accept Trent's argument that if determinism is true, there is no moral responsibility. I just think that it isn't related to either atheism or the belief in a God.
Congratulations on missing the argument of, no free-will, Trent.
Response to your video -
• For all intents and purposes the will of us is not free.
• It is idle to speak of free will in a man who is the slave of the objects around him.
He is ever in bondage, he can exercise no choice; for though we may think of such a one as choosing to follow the path along which attractions draw him, there is, in truth, no choice nor thought of choice.
So long as attraction and repulsion determine the path, all talk of freedom is empty and foolish.
• To understand what freedom of will means, we must clear away a preliminary difficulty which faces us in the word: choice.
• When we appear to be free to choose, does that so-called freedom of choice mean freedom of will.?
Or is it not true to say that freedom of choice means that no external force compels us to elect one or another of alternatives.?
• The important question that lies behind this is: what makes us choose.?
Whether we are free to act when we have chosen is a very different thing from whether we are free to choose, or whether the choice is determined by something that lies behind.
• No one denies the power of a person, physically unconstrained, to leave a room or to stay in it, to drop a weight or to uphold it.
• The question is: why do I choose.?
When we analyse the choice, we see that it is determined by motive.
You can uphold or drop the weight, but if there is a valuable or fragile article underneath, you will not drop it.
That which determines your choice not to drop it is the presence of that valuable or fragile object.
Your choice is determined by motives, and the strongest motive directs it.
• The question is not: am I free to act, but: am I free to will.?
• In truth, this fact that the will is determined by the strongest motive is the basis of all organized society, of all law, of all penalty, of all responsibility, of all education.
• In law, a man is regarded as irresponsible when no motive sways him, when no ordinary reasons affect him.
• Apart from the previously-mentioned bondage to attraction and repulsion, we are bound within the channels made by our past thinkings, by our habits, most of all by our habits of thought, by the strengths and the weaknesses that were born with us, by our education and our surroundings, by the imperious compulsions of our stage in evolution, our physical heredity, and our national and racial traditions.
• We know what motivated the atrocious acts of the church and we know what motivates every Chrstn to uphold the atrocious acts committed by the church.
• Can a person who is bound by a virtue, criticize those, who are bound by a vice.?
Yes.
• Can a person who is bound by a virtue, in one area, be bound by a vice in another area.?
Yes.
Your title is misleading. Atheists that defend free will can blame Christians. So, at best, you have 'some atheists can't blame Christians.' Slightly different, and totally uninteresting.
Edit: Perhaps you don't title your videos, and if you don't, you should have a word with the person that does, because they're making you look like a disingenuous interlocutor who is willing to uncharitably generalise to suit your narrative. A sign of a really poor thinker failing to appreciate nuance and dialectics. Food for thought, Trent.
"A sign of a really poor thinker failing to appreciate nuance and dialectic"
This is how I described my mom when she wouldn't listen to my argument on why I shouldn't have to eat vegetables
@@newglof9558 Haha, that made me chuckle. I do think his error is egregious though, if it is indeed his.
He was determined to title it so. Why are you hurt?
@@jacobleith6369it's really not. If you're atheist and believe in free will, just chill
@@newglof9558 But his title is misleading. Similar to saying theists believe Mohammad is a prophetof God. No, some theists believe Mohammad is a prophet of God. If you were then going to criticise Mohammad thinking you're criticising theism, you're making a grave error. And it's not even similar, it's exactly the same.
❤❤❤❤❤ your videos are great, blessings to you and yours
4:43 appealing to God to get out of the free will paradox doesn’t work. I could cite the consensus of professional philosophers, but either way appealing to god doesn’t create a philosophical justification for free will.
Never look to religion for morality.
If morality is subjective, and I think that genocide is good, then are you to prove me wrong? If you were to call me reprehensible, could you prove that objectively? Subjective morality is extremely dangerous.
@@blsi4037
Your god condones genocide and slavery, what are you on about. If you depend on a being for morality, that's not objective.
@@nativeatheist6422 So does deflecting the statement suggest that genocide, to you, is a subjective concept? Again, if morality were subjective, what is so bad about Genocide? If you or I were killed, what would be so bad about that?
@@blsi4037
It would be bad to the eye of the beholder. Morality only comes from thinking minds. Prove objective morality exists.
@@nativeatheist6422 "Morality only comes from thinking minds" . yeah, you need to check "human zoo" and see how they defined morality... LOL
the crimes of the Amalekites were QUITE different than the sins of the Cannanites...
Did the Catholic Church take the second commandment out of the Bible that they use?
Trent Horn at his finest! Atheism seems to be especially popular in Britain- next to Islam.
Your examples in logic regarding choices reminds me of the movie Saw.
Moral responsibility is an observable natural phenomenon, determinism is a metaphysical hypothesis.
From "people are inclined to attribute value to actions", which is an observable phenomenon
Does not follow "therefore people are free from causal chains", which is a metaphysical hypothesis
It is a mistake to connect analytic and synthetic statements like this since former represent relations of ideas and are necessary true, while the latter represent matters of fact and one can not be derived from another
Christ is King❤
Thank you.
Mentioning the moral problem of the ancient Israelites' slaughter of the Canaanites... only to then switch the entire discussion to a focus on the inherent contradictions of those who reject Free Will is chicanery. If you're going to defend Christianity, deal with the problem that has been raised - by yourself, in this instance - first and foremost.
he did by calling out the major contradiction of atheists who criticize christians morals by showing that an atheist cant even be in reality actually "moral" in the sense of good and evil
13:06 can it be argued in P1: with quantum physics, determinism is no longer necessarily true even if atheism is true?
The entire implication in P1 is unsubstantiated. People aren't determinists because they're atheists. They're determinists because they believe certain physical theories to be true. If those theories are really true, then the universe is deterministic regardless of God's existence.
I feel like there still is a possibility that moral responsibility is something people have come up with (i.e. it doesn' need to come from God). A "tool" humans have invented to increase well-being and decrease harm. As I understand, this is the direction the definition of morality takes for most people (atheist or not; myself included) who don't believe it comes from God. There is some nuance, but it's not important for this comment.
A common response to the most common moral argument is that moral values don't need to be objective because morality could also be a concept humans have come up with to achieve a certain goal. Sometimes, an action would be (almost) universally agreed to be immoral, but that doesn't necessairily mean it's objective. I really commend you for not going for the emotionally manipulative route (I've seen some apologists presenting the argument as "imagine the most morally repulsive thing" to confirm that premise). However, I think you were a little hasty to justify that premise, i.e. taking a look at how atheists talk about those parts of the Bible. I think it is still consistent for a determinist to criticise that... It can still be subjectively placed moral responsibility (with a certain goal) and they may or may not be detetmined to place it. And that's another thing I I feel like you should've discussed more. I don't think it would be inconsistent to place moral responsibility for a determinist. A determinist is still able to think about a single action of declaring someone is morally responsible for an action. He is able by looking at posibilities what could happen if he does it in contrast to what would happen if he does not. He is just (in his view) determined to do so.
Also, just to clarify, I am agnostic both when it comes to the free will question and the God question.
I actually don't have a particular issue with the moral defense of the actions, I think it's a bit of a slippery slope (Alex presses WLC on this in their conversation and WLC struggles to answer a question like "does this mean god could, in theory, command a school shooting?"), but the trickier question that he didn't want to elaborate on in that particular conversation is, how can you possibly know what a divine command is? You can't say for sure that Joshua's actions were the result of a divine command, but a woman who kills her children because god told her to is just mentally unwell. You just don't know that.
15:04 precisely and those reasons are not free. You are subject to your reasons. You are subject to your wants. Free will is an illusion but moral responsibility isn't.
Is morality objective then ?
I see litteraly no reason to believe in morality if Im not free. Either we are free or we are not, make up your mind
What you are describing sounds like compatibilism which is not free will, it's borderline cognitive dissonance to say you are free but subject to your wants. If you cannot escape your wants you are not free. Neither are you then really moraly resposible.
You just made hard determinists look like logical heroes
Not even Jesus had freewill. Acts 2:23 "This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan".
What I love is that atheists say that they believe in science. The problem is that science is Roman Catholic. Why else would "scientific terms" actually be in Latin. Also, scientific research are done at universities. Universities were started by the Universal Church. AKA The Roman Catholic Church.
Greeks and Persians and Chinese were way ahead in science than the roman empire, and they couldn't care less about "church language".
and who told you science is in latin? Because we use x and y in math it makes it latin?
Science is done in every language, when it comes to publishing, we use English just because it's worldly convenient not because we need "church language"
Even the oldest scriptures of bible aren't in latin, the first ones were written in Greek, now what you got to say about your precious church language?
Gotta love inventing a system that proves your religion wrong 😂
@@amirparsi4165Way ahead? The Church brought modern science
@@PercyTinglishAddiction to emoji faces is really serious
@amirparsi4165 You can pretend that the names of organisms and animals are not actually in Latin, but it is. All of them. The scientific name for a pig is Sus scrofa domesticus. That's Latin. Scientific name for cow is Bos Taurus. Again, that is Latin. Need I go on?
The fact of the matter is that in the Western world, all of Europe was held together by the Roman Catholic Church. This was until the Reformation and Nationalism came to be. The Protestants made an enemy of reason and are responsible for pretty much every war that happened during and after the 1500's.
Animals must obey the pure instinct that causes self-preservation, even if it also preserves their offspring by seeming to be “selfless,” and to be to helping the offspring. They can’t and won’t do otherwise. That instinct may be deeply woven into their genetic makeup over millions of years, or that instinct may come into play only in governing their unique individual choices. But it’s still only an instinct.
Humans, however, can fully override the self-preservation instinct, essentially subsuming the instincts that would help, in general, them and their descendants, and instead use their mental reasoning to take an action that would certainly kill or bring harm to themselves, but would save the life of another person. And they do it while knowing the risks, in full or in part.
The very noticeable example of such a situation is when a person protects another who would likely harm them, and from whom they can only expect trouble. This is why we arrest murderers, without killing them, and at risk to ourselves, until the danger from them can be neutralized or contained by imprisonment.
Animals don’t protect those that prey on them. There’s no morality to animals, so there’s no moral reason for them to do that.
Other animals genuinely are selfless all the time for their offspring or even for others. Bats have been known to feed other bats, which is selfless because they may need that energy themselves.
Mother animals always risk themselves for their offspring, such as by sticking around their young in a vulnerable position. Some animals starve themselves to death to stay around their young.
Humans are just very complex. Also, people arrest murderers because they are a risk to society, which can also include yourself, so obviously you would be against letting murderers free.
"Animals don’t protect those that prey on them." That's because animals don't arrest each other. They get away, or defend. If you have a knife, and a crazy guy was coming at you, would you try to stab them in self defence, or run, or would you arrest them? No you wouldn't arrest them, because you are not in a position to do so.
People have societies. In these societies, we are able to have dedicated roles for things like arresting people. Other animals don't have that because they don't need to. They don't need the same types as societies like us to survive with.
Also, morality really refers to what we consider right or wrong. We know it because we communicate with each other, and have recorded laws. Animals cannot communicate in the same way we can, or record stuff. So, we don't know if they consider certain things wrong or not. I mean, it seems likely my dog would know what was wrong because he would crouch low even before we started shouting at him, because he was clever and knew it was something that we didn't like. And, he stopped doing some of those behaviours (still continued some naughty behaviours because he couldn't help himself the poor boy, but I am confident he knew it was wrong, at least in a way he understood)
@@hydraph4843
Your dog didn’t have the slightest clue about what was “wrong.” It only became accustomed and learned what things would make you react in a way that it didn’t like. It’s only learned. That doesn’t mean that mammals can’t have affection for mammals of other species. They do. But they don’t know why they do it, and they can’t turn it on and off with their willpower. Because they don’t have willpower.
@@timopper5488 "Your dog didn’t have the slightest clue about what was “wrong.” It only became accustomed and learned what things would make you react in a way that it didn’t like. ".
Thanks for agreeing with me that my dog learned certain things made us unhappy with his behaviour. That's what humans do really isn't it? We look at how other people behave, and can relate to our own experiences of hurt to figure out what is right or wrong.
"It’s only learned. ".
So do people. I was terrible as a kid because I wouldn't share with people. Then I learnt that's naughty because of how other people react.
"and they can’t turn it on and off with their willpower. Because they don’t have willpower.".
Well no because like I say with certain behaviours my dog was able to stop it completely. It was just on things where the instinct was too strong. People ourselves struggle with many things
@@hydraph4843
You still don’t understand what I’m saying. Only humans can do something that they know for a fact will only harm them but help someone else. Other mammals can only do what will likely benefit them based on past experience. People can, and often do things that won’t benefit themselves at all, due to their convictions. Other animals do not have convictions.
@@timopper5488 " Only humans can do something that they know for a fact will only harm them but help someone else. ".
Nope. There are instances of altruism in many animals where they take a risk for the benefit of others, and not even necessarily their kids. For example, vampire bats feeding others blood. They are getting rid of their own food, the stuff that all animals instinctively know to consume to keep them alive, just to help out these strangers.
"Other mammals can only do what will likely benefit them based on past experience.".
That is not true at all. See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism_(biology)
I guess though as a particular example, what about first time mothers who sacrifice their own vulnerability for their offspring? Also this applies to other animals besides mammals. Birds also work very hard for their young, and even reptiles do so. Crocodiles will carry their young, and some snakes also protect their young (such as pythons incubating their eggs). This is their first experiences doing any of these things.
Also, does this not apply to people? Think about it. Is there any good things you knowingly did before actually learning how others respond? Or, what others tell you? I came across this interesting paper which suggests that selflessness is an attractive behaviour. So, it's a risk sure. But, the benefits through how others perceive you can be greater than that risk:
link.springer.com/article/10.1186/1471-2148-13-182
I also came across this video of a monkey rescuing another monkey (potentially putting itself at risk) for no immediate apparent reason):
ua-cam.com/video/l6-mx13r5dg/v-deo.html
I’m a compatiblist and found this video very interesting!
Is there a reason you aren’t posting this on Spotify anymore?
Trent, many theists are compatibilists, in my understanding, including most Catholics under the most common Thomistic interpretation that I've heard. This is very unintuitive to me, for many of the reasons you laid out here. Could you help me to understand? Is there a non-deterministic theism that is valid? How does it not devolve into open theism? Even Molinism seems somewhat reductionist to me.
There's just no way to make it sound appealing. The deaths were terrible and anyone with a heart would wish it had not happened. You just have to accept God for his love and his wrath.
There's a paradox at the heart of determinism.
Why would Sapolsky write a book trying to change people's minds about determinism if the world is deterministic and he won't be able to change people minds?
Unless it was predetermined that Sapolsky would write that book, and some people would change their minds due to reading it.
Functionally, such a deterministic world would be indistiguishable from a world with free will. It's just predetermined that we would act as if we had free will, and that we are morally responsible for our actions.
And it's the biggest *shrug* you could *shrug*. Either way you will have free will, or act as if you have free will.
"... if the world is deterministic and he won't be able to change people minds"
Of course they can change their minds. People changing their minds when they encounter new evidence is still determinism. It's cause and effect. Far from being something that can't work under determinism, changing your mind in response to reading something is precisely determinism in action. It's a general, common failure to see anything mental, as being caused by anything external. That's simply not how reality works.
There's a good BBC article from maybe 10 years ago with real world cases that significantly challenge popular notion of free will. I can't link it, but search for "BBC What can a brain scan tell us about free will?" and you should get there. Here's an excerpt. And ask yourself where the moral responsibility lies.
-----
All that raises a question for the philosopher - what are the implications of advances in knowledge about human decision-making for our conception of free will? Will scientific progress undermine our sense that we have free will? Will it eventually lead us to conclude that free will is an illusion?
Take the following notorious real-life case from a decade ago.
A once happily married middle-aged man begins to develop a fascination for child pornography and prostitution. Until this moment he has exhibited no unusual sexual appetites. Matters deteriorate, his wife becomes alarmed, and when he makes an advance on his step-daughter, his wife informs the police. Her husband is compelled to go and have therapy - but that doesn't deter him. Indeed, he harasses women at the centre at which he is being treated.
A prison term seems inevitable. But just before he is due back in front of the courts, he begins to complain of headaches. He is rushed to hospital, where a scan reveals a massive tumour. Once this tumour is removed, his behaviour returns to normal.
The story has a further twist. After several months, his aberrant behaviour returns. An investigation reveals that the tumour has not been entirely eradicated. A further operation sees the man back to his old self once again.
In this case most people will probably feel that the man with the deviant sexual behaviour wasn't really free. It was, as it were, the tumour that was responsible.
But we are all physical beings in a (largely) deterministic universe. Why is one physical cause - a tumour - different from any other? Might, in future, neuroscientists be brought into court to explain away all manner of transgressions, for example: "This man can't be held responsible for his shoplifting - it was due to his unusually high levels of dopamine." There is evidence that some people treated with dopamine for Parkinson's have problems with impulse control, sex and gambling, for example.
When atheists vote for universal health care and evangelicals don't, i'm blaming the evangelicals. And philosophical gassing about free will and absolute standards doesn't make those lives better
Another great argument by Tent ❤
As a Christian, I true freedom if the will makes no philosophical sense to me. I must also point out that there is no contradiction between there being no true free will and holding people responsible for their actions. The fact that the ardonists was somehow determined to set fhe fire does not mean that we should not respond to him as if he is a dangerous arsonist. The idea that moral responsibility requires true free will is a misapplication of the idea of duress being exculpatory. I would say that someone acting under duress (ie. Not according to their 'will') is exculpatory because their actions do not reveal something of their character.
Not all atheists reject free will but I’m not sure how they explain free will. I’m thinking of the late George H Smith.
Interesting comment! Sometimes, people "disagree" on things simply because things are defined incorrectly! -Vanessa
5:04 the difference between blaming a lightning and a human being is that blaming a lightning won't have any difference on future lightning strikes while blaming a human, in many instances, will have influence on his future actions.
This explains subjective morality where those in power dictate the actions of others. I think he is referring to objective morality that would judge the actions of one with power.
@@smidlee7747 in this context it doesn't matter whether whether it's subjective or objective. He claims that there is no reason for blaming others if one doesn't believe in free will. He's wrong, there is a reason and it is indifferent whether the reason is objective or subjective.
No, he already addressed this with the North Korea example. If your goal of ascribing guilt or blameworthiness is simply to prevent crime from occurring, then it follows you should also punish 3 generations of that person. Deterrence of crime is not the sole reason we find blameworthiness.
@@johnmadison4040 the goal of ascribing guilt isn't to prevent crime. Its goal is to morally influence the other person so that he'd want to do things we believe to be moral. It has nothing to do with punishment. We can blame somebody without implying they deserve any punishment.
@@asmodeuszdewa7194 you’re out of your element dude. I would start with learning how to spell before you graduate to philosophy.
"If God exists, and we're made in God's image, that would explain how we have the ability to make choices, that rise above what nature would ordinarily determine in purely physical outcomes." 8:31
If you want to believe in an omni-benevolent god with free will, then I think you'd have to be a compatiblist. An omni-benevolent god will absolutely never do wrong, surely. But for a god to have Libertarian free will, there must be an objective possibility that they will do wrong. These two ideas are contradictory. If you are an incompatiblist, then since we could know an omni-benevolent god will never do wrong, they would have no free will, and would not be deserving of praise for their actions.
You can have no free will and still be able to learn and adapt, those two are not mutually exclusive.
No you cannot.
@@HunnysPlaylists then I guess nobody has ever learnt or adapted
@@ArtemMalian Learning and adapting are two qualities of the Will.
@@HunnysPlaylists So when we make machines capable of learning and adapting will you consider that they have Free Will?
@@ArtemMalian Free Will is a result of The Rational Soul.
Sam Harris has also floated a theoretical “first strike” in the Middle East.
P1 is the contrapositive of "If moral responsibility exists, therefore God exists" which is clearly not axiomatic.
For example, Atheistic moral realists and compatibilists do exist. Not to mention arguments that Divine Command ethics is not moral (since they are arbitrary) or that morality is evolved and therefore subjective but not arbitrary.
Also, yet again a philosophical proof is not evidence, especially when the premises of the argument are debatable.
Lol always be on the Attack even when you’ve just humiliated your religion in front of the whole world.
Would someone be so kind as to edit a short video of horn admitting “not more than 3” when referring to the eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ resurrection
As someone who was raised Catholic and has read the Bible cover to cover (although it was many years ago), I will say that the statement:
P1. If God does not exist, we do not have moral responsibility
P2. We do have moral responsibility
C. Therefore, God does exist.
Isn’t logically sound, because it ignores the possibility that other situations may result in having moral responsibility DESPITE god still not existing. The dichotomy between atheism and catholicism is not a “One is correct”, it is a “At MOST, one is correct”. Your propositions ignore the possibility of other reasonings or situations. (Although there are good arguments for good out there, this one is unfortunately a lil flawed)
Argument is sound
~A > ~B
B
:.A
MI: A v ~B
DS:
A v ~ B
B
:. A
Conclusion: A
Premise is wrong. Matters of fact can not prove or disprove metaphysical hypotesis like god or free will. From "we have morals" does not follow "there is free will" etc
I have a question: will this affect the moral significance of Christ’s choosing t live a sinless life? Common understanding is that Christ, being 2nd person of the trinity, could not really have done sin. So, if the possibility of alternate choices is paramount to convey free will, was Christ free (in a libertarian sense, not compatibilist) while on earth? Or can we explain this in terms of his two natures and say he had libertarian free will wrt to his human nature and the same freedom God had wrt to his divine nature: in so far as God the father is not limited bcus he can’t lie, for example, similarly Christ, in his divine nature, is also not limited bcus he could not sin?
8:35 what Church is that?
There seems to be a misconception here that no free will involves fatalism.